


Unconquerable

by princessamaterasu



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Bavaria, Berchtesgaden, Berlin (City), Character Death, Eiger, F/M, Historical, Journalism, Kleine Scheidegg, Mountaineering, Nazis, Newspapers, North Face, Romance, Snow and Ice, Swiss Alps, Tragedy, true story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 18:20:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 28,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1698011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessamaterasu/pseuds/princessamaterasu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ludwig and Gilbert Beilschmidt live to climb mountains. The untamed North Face calls to them, and they are eager to answer. Lili Zwingli wants nothing more than to be a successful photojournalist and watch the brothers make history. Will the story she writes be a triumph or a tragedy? Based on a true story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone :) I'm back again with another story, but this one is going to be a little different. It's loosely based on the movie North Face and tells the story of Toni Kurz and Andi Hinterstoisser using our beloved Hetalia characters. I apologize in advance for the character deaths that will inevitably be taking place. I find no joy in killing off characters, however it is important to the telling of this particular story. I apologize again :( Please enjoy.
> 
> I do not own Hetalia or North Face :/

There was a time in which Mt. Everest was not the pinnacle of the mountaineer's career. Within the Swiss Alps lies three very distinct mountains with the names Mönch, Jungfau, and Eiger. The Eiger Mountain was once called the last problem of the Alps, and climbers flocked to its North Face to conquer its treacherous and unscaled heights. Numerous attempts were made to crush this final challenge, but none succeeded.

The death toll became so high that the Bernese police tried to ban any further climbing of the mountain. However, before the rule was set in place, many risked their lives to climb the North Face as other mountains in the Alps were being climbed one by one. In 1935, two Bavarian climbers took the challenge and climbed higher than anyone to attempt it previously. Unfortunately, fate was not on their side, and a sudden storm left the climbers stranded on the mountain face. They froze to death before they could descend.

It wasn't until the summer of 1936 that the North Face was seriously challenged once more. The Olympics were to be held in Berlin, and the nations of the world were itching to show their superiority during such turbulent times. Climbers from around the world gathered at the foot of the Eiger with dreams of being the first to the top. The Nazis were also eager to make history, and they urged German climbers to win honor for their country.

This is where the story of the North Face begins.


	2. Unexpected Opportunity

Lili Zwingli sat quietly and watched as various men walked into the room and took their seats around a large table. Her job was to not say a word and take notes on different ideas that presented themselves during the course of the conversation. She was sometimes asked to get coffee as well. It never really bothered her that she was treated as a servant by the men. All she wanted was to learn the ins and outs of running a newspaper so that she could become a successful photojournalist. She watched as her brother entered the room and closed the door. Everyone else was in attendance, and the meeting could begin.

"So, what is going to sell?" Vash Zwingli asked the men gathered at the table. "Our next issue needs to make a new profit record."

"We can report on the Party's movements to annex Austria," a porky man suggested. He had the stump of a cigar in his mouth that bobbed precariously as he talked.

"As much as I enjoy your loyalty to the Party, I believe that might be too straightforward. The German people want entertaining news, not propaganda. They get enough of that as it is."

There were a few low laughs of agreement at Vash's statement.

"We could talk about the Olympics. I'm sure everyone will want to hear about it since it will be held in our city," suggested another man.

"True, but all the other newspapers have covered that story. We need something fresh," Vash insisted. "Something that will set the Berliner Zeitung apart from the rest."

"How about mountain climbing?" Everyone turned to look at the greasy looking man that spoke. "I hear there are teams of climbers gathering in Switzerland to climb the Eiger."

There was a stir of excitement among the gathered men, and Lili made sure to underline mountain climbing in her notes.

"Are there any German teams?" Vash asked.

"Not that I know of."

"Then it wouldn't be a very exciting story," criticized one of the men. "Who wants to hear about the French or the Italians or the Spaniards trying to climb the Eiger? It's not very patriotic."

"What if we could find a German team to go?" another man suggested excitedly.

"That would be the story of the decade," Vash said as a smile grew on his face. "The century if they make it to the top first."

"Where are we supposed to find climbers good enough?"

"I've heard of a team." All eyes were on the man with the cigar. He seemed to enjoy the attention and took his time tapping ashes into a glass ashtray. "They're a team from Bavaria-"

"Like the team that died climbing the Eiger last year?"

"Yes," the cigar man said with an irked expression. He did not like being interrupted. "Only this team has quite a reputation already. I'm fairly certain they were in a Bavarian news article last week talking about their climbing career. They're a pair of brothers that are stationed at the military base in Berchtesgaden, I think, but I can't seem to remember their names. It was Beil something. Beil...Beilberg? Beilkopf?"

"Beilschmidt," Lili whispered to herself.

Her whisper must have carried further than she expected because everyone was soon staring at her. She immediately blushed bright red under their gazes and shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

"What do you know about this, Lili?" Vash asked softly.

"I...um...d-do you remember w-when you sent me to get firearm training in Berchtesgaden?"

"Yes, what about it?"

"I-I met Gilbert and L-Ludwig there. I know them. We're f-friends."

One corner of Vash's lips twitched up in amusement. Lili could already see the wheels turning in his head. When Vash Zwingli smelled a good story, he did not stop until he had it in his grasp. He dismissed the other men and motioned for Lili to follow him. The two walked to his private office, one of the perks of being chief editor, and he sat down at his desk. Lili took a seat in the only other chair in the room, which was across from the desk, without being invited. She had sat in the very same chair often enough in the past. It probably had something to do with being Vash's younger sister.

"Give me your notes." Vash never demanded anything from anyone, but his voice left little room to argue. Lili did as she was told. "Hmm. Not the worst meeting we've ever had," he said as he looked over what she had written. When he finished, he placed the notepad on his desk and opened one of his desk drawers. "I want you to go to Berchtesgaden."

"W-what?" Lili exclaimed in surprise.

"I need you to convince the Beilschmidts to climb the Eiger," Vash explained as he pulled out a pen. He flipped to a new page in the notepad and began to write. "I'll write you a note to give to the treasurer. You'll be given forty marks, which should cover the roundtrip train ticket and room and board. You should also be given a Retina camera."

"B-but, brother, this is all so sudden..."

"That's how journalism works." He tore out the note and handed it to his sister, who was still shocked at the whole ordeal. "I want you back in three days with their answer, and please try to make it a yes."

"But what if they-"

Vash silenced her with a look. "Don't doubt yourself or you've already lost," he said softly. "This is something only you can do. Why did you want to become a journalist?"

"Because of you-"

"What is it that you want to accomplish as a journalist?" he rephrased.

Lili was at a loss for words. She hadn't really given it much thought before. "I...I want to see something amazing. I want to be there when they write history."

"Exactly. This is the first step in making history." Vash stood up and moved so he was beside his sister. He placed a hand on her head and looked her directly in the eyes. "I believe you can do this. Now hurry up. You have packing to do."

Lili replayed the conversation with her brother over and over as she rode the train south into Bavaria. Nostalgia tickled her mind as she thought about going back to Berchtesgaden. Vash had insisted she have some firearm training just in case she ever ended up in a bad situation, so he had sent her to the Bavarian military base. She had gone along with his plan because he promised to help her get a job at his newspaper if she did. It never occurred to her that she would actually enjoy it.

The training itself hadn't been all that interesting, but she had a wonderful time talking to the different people that lived at the base. That was where she had met Gilbert and Ludwig Beilschmidt. The two were serving in the military, but they still spent a lot of their time climbing the surrounding mountains whenever they could. They were the ones who taught Lili everything she knew about mountain climbing. She had been secretly excited when the conversation among the journalists had turned to that topic.

In her mind, she recalled the many arduous expeditions the three had gone on together to climb the rocks and crags surrounding the Bavarian town. Unlike the two men, Lili was much slower at climbing and had less physical strength. She was always the last one to the top, but the other two always waited for her. They never laughed, other than the occasional teasing, and they never let her fall. She valued their friendship and trusted them almost as much as Vash.

Seeing them again would be such a treat. She missed the slow country life of Berchtesgaden, which was the exact opposite of her life in Berlin. The scenery outside of Lili's window whipped past as the train continued on its southern course. She was the only one sitting in her particular compartment, and she let out a soft sigh as her attention was drawn away from the window. The conductor was opening her compartment door to check her ticket. She glanced at the time the train was expected to arrive and almost sighed again as she handed the man her ticket. Most of her day would be spent on the train. That gave her only a day in Berchtesgaden before she had to leave.

"Thank you, ma'am," the conductor said with a tip of his hat as he returned Lili's ticket. He stepped out of the compartment and closed the door to check on other passengers.

Lili allowed herself to sigh, and her eyes wandered back toward the window. She absentmindedly fiddled with the strap of the camera sitting on her lap. It was going to be a long train ride.


	3. The Brothers and the Climb

"Stand up, you miserable dogs."

The two men that were scrubbing the latrine floor got to their feet and stood at attention without speaking a word. They watched stoically as their company sergeant's eyes flicked down to the wet floor and back up to their emotionless faces.

"I couldn't care less about your hobbies outside of training, even if they do make you national heroes of sorts. Curfew is curfew. If you're not going to be in your bunks on time, then there will be a lot more immaculately cleaned bathrooms around here. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, company sergeant," both men replied.

The officer watched them carefully to make sure he was not being mocked. He was a vain man, and often feared his subordinates were being insincere. However, this time he was satisfied with their answer and was about to leave when he caught the faint beginnings of a smirk appearing on one of the men's faces.

"Something funny, Beilschmidt?"

"No, company sergeant. I simply do not know how we are expected to be on time if neither of us owns a watch."

There was silence. Both men watched as the officer's face shifted from red to purple and back to red. The man who hadn't made the snide remark inwardly cursed the other for the rest of eternity. He had probably earned the two more punishment. That's exactly what they got when the company sergeant rediscovered his ability to talk, if it could be called talking.

"You two might think you're going to get special attention because of what you do, but I'm not fooled! You're no heroes! You're scoundrels!" He stomped out of the latrine with one last happy morsel thrown over his shoulder. "I don't want to see either of you until every bathroom on this compound is spotless!"

The one who incurred the harsh decree laughed once the officer was out of earshot and turned to his partner. "Think I can use that as an excuse to miss out on training?"

"Shut up," the other said as he dropped back onto his hands and knees. "It's your fault that we have more work now. Don't own watches...that was the best you could come up with?"

"Hey, I couldn't say I was comparing his nose to a bird beak," the first said as he joined the other on the wet floor. "I did us a favor."

"Some favor."

They scrubbed without exchanging words for a long time. The only sound that filled the empty latrine was the sound of their brushes scraping filth off the floor and the occasional scrape of a metal bucket when it was accidentally nudged by an arm or foot. Suddenly, the silence was broken by the sound of a brush being carelessly tossed to the floor.

"This sucks," whined the troublemaker as he rubbed one of his red eyes with the back of his hand.

"Well, maybe if you owned a watch-"

"I know what'll make us both feel better," he continued without acknowledging the sarcastic comment made by his partner. "You feel up for some climbing, West?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

It took the two only a few minutes to sneak out of the latrine and find their bikes. From there, it only took a few more to bike into town. Berchtesgaden was a small village nestled in the Alps that the southern border of Bavaria shared with Austria. Its location was probably what sparked the two's interest in climbing at such a young age, and also happened to be where the two had spent their entire lives. Naturally, they became very good climbing partners, although it probably helped that they were brothers.

Gilbert, the oldest, waited impatiently for his younger brother, Ludwig, to gather their equipment from the small house the two shared. They were the only two residents, but the building was too tiny to ever feel empty. Especially since it was packed full of climbing gear. Once Ludwig reappeared and locked the door, the two biked toward a tall peak in the distance. They made the trip often and hardly had to think about where to turn as the followed a winding road to the base of the mountain. Their bicycles were carefully stowed under a large bush, and the pair began their ascent.

"Trying out a new route today?" Gilbert called up to his younger brother. The two usually climbed so that Ludwig was higher up than his elder brother.

"Yes, so don't do anything stupid," Ludwig responded. "I actually want to make it to the top this time."

"You're not still mad about last time, are you West?"

Gilbert was referring to their near disastrous climb they had attempted only a few days prior. It happened when one of Gil's pitons came loose as he was attempting a difficult maneuver, and he ended up dropping several meters before the safety rope went taut and halted his free fall. The only thing that kept him from falling further was Ludwig tied to the other end, and it took several hours to get the elder brother back on the face of the mountain due to some unfortunate rock formations. That little mishap had resulted in them unintentionally breaking curfew.

"You need to learn to hammer your pitons in better," Ludwig said curtly.

"Maybe they'll name this route after us!" his brother exclaimed. Ludwig's chiding seemed to have little to no effect on his enthusiasm.

"Maybe we'll make it to the top before sunset if you get moving."

Ludwig reached up for an outcropping and used it to pull himself up to some secure footholds. His hand automatically went to his waist where he had steel pitons strung on a small loop of rope. He slipped one free and positioned the pointed end in a small crack before hammering it into place. Another loop, this one full of carabiners, jingled near his opposite hip as he took off a carabiner to clip into the round opening of the hammered piton. Then he strung his rope through the carabiner and searched for another handhold. The whole process took less than a minute.

They climbed for a good while without exchanging words. Ludwig preferred it that way. It wasn't that he was not social. His true reasoning was because it was the only time Gilbert would stay quiet. His older brother was a constant source of noise, even in his sleep. Gilbert also liked the silence because it allowed him to clear his head. He didn't think anywhere else in the world could be as quiet as the side of a mountain while he scaled it. If only he could spend more time doing this instead of being involved in silly things like the military, or politics. It seemed that was all anyone ever wanted to talk about.

The climb was going rather smoothly until Ludwig came to a halt. "What's the hold up?" Gilbert asked.

"I can't go on," Ludwig answered. "There's a rock shelf sticking out."

A few meters above his head was a large outcropping that was physically impossible to climb. It spanned out quite a ways in both directions, so the only option was to abseil down several meters and climb around it. Ludwig was about to do just that when Gilbert tugged on the rope tethering them together.

"Can I do my thing?"

"Your thing is what got us in trouble last time."

"But, West!" Gil whined. "I can't get better if I don't practice."

"Fine," Ludwig assented with difficulty. His brother often tried his patience. "Don't expect me to help you if you fall."

Gilbert grinned widely and began to climb to Ludwig's right. The younger brother watched as the older one climbed a few meters out and a little ways up before stopping to hammer in a piton with the flat side of his ice axe.

"Make sure it's secure this time!" Ludwig called mockingly.

"Yeah, yeah!" Gilbert replied and tugged on the rope strung through the carabiner in the piton for show. "Good enough for you? Give me some slack, West," he requested without waiting for an answer.

Ludwig slowly let the rope slide between his fingers as his brother lowered himself several meters. When he was down a good length, Ludwig stopped and held on tight. This was what made them such a good team. They read each other's movements, communicated without words, and had complete and total trust in each other. Gilbert knew he could count on Ludwig to be his anchor, and so he ran without hesitation. After a short distance he lost contact with the mountain and swung back to where he started.

Gilbert hated to admit it, but Ludwig was much bigger and taller than he was. It made it much easier for the younger brother to reach higher handholds and act as a counterweight when Gil abseiled, but the elder brother's size had an advantage as well. Ludwig could never attempt what Gilbert was doing at that moment.

The shorter, white haired brother used the momentum from the backwards swing to his advantage as he moved to the right once more. Instead of trying to run, he pulled himself along using various rocks and natural handholds to increase the length of his arc. It took him several swings, but Gilbert was finally able to grab onto a rock and stay there. He looked up to see a straight path to the summit and whooped triumphantly. There was no doubt that no one could beat Gilbert when it came to traversing.

He began to hammer in another piton as Ludwig watched admiringly. "Someday, they're going to name one of these after you," he said.

"The Beilschmidt Traverse." Gilbert tested the name and liked the way it felt in his mouth. "I could get used to that."

"Just hurry up so I can cross."

Gilbert finished securing the rope to the rock face so his younger brother could use it to cross the traverse. It took Ludwig a long time to get across the horizontal expanse. He wished he could traverse as easily as his brother, but he knew his height and weight worked against him. There would be no way Gil could anchor him while he swung back and forth.

"I'll take the lead," Gilbert announced as soon as Ludwig secured the rope crossing the traverse, which they'd have to use on their way down. The elder brother began climbing without waiting for an answer.

"Brother, I don't think you should-"

The words were barely out of Ludwig's mouth when Gilbert's foot slipped out of a particularly narrow foothold, and he went sliding down the mountain face. Ludwig reacted without thinking. He pressed his back against the cool stone behind him and bent his knees in anticipation of the recoil. His hands securely grasped the rope tethering the two together just as it suddenly went tight, and his arms felt like they were going to pop right off.

"You fat bastard!" he growled at his brother, who was dangling far below him. He knew Gilbert could hear because he got a shaky laugh in response.

"You weigh more than I do," Ludwig heard Gilbert shout.

"But I don't fall as often as you do!"

"Yeah, yeah. I'll be back up in a minute."

Gilbert may have said that, but Ludwig knew he was in for a wait. He tried to find something to occupy his mind while his brother climbed back up the rope. The first thought that came into his mind was the recovery technique after a fall. If he were in Gil's situation, he would first find a very thin rope and tie it into a special foothold on the larger rope. He would then use it to give him the leverage he needed to climb up what could be several meters. That was exactly what Gilbert was doing, and Ludwig knew he still had a ways to go.

Occasionally, the rope in his hands would twitch, but nothing indicated that his idiot of a brother was anywhere near the top yet. He had to find another thought to distract him. Without being bidden, his mind turned to Lili. It had been a long time since she went back to Berlin. He remembered similar situations to the one he was currently in when she had been around. She had kept his mind off the ache in his arms and legs by talking while Gilbert had climbed. Sometimes she was distracting enough just being near Ludwig. He would become mesmerized by the way the sun shined off her short blonde hair and brightened the flush in her cheeks caused by the crisp mountain air. She was as pretty as the Alpine scenery Ludwig had grown to love and appreciate through years of climbing. He wondered where she was at that moment. Probably at some big bar full of laughing couples and young men looking for a good time.

"Hey, West!" Gilbert's voice snapped the blonde out of his daze. "Ready to keep going, or are you going to stare at the view all day?"

"W-what?" Ludwig hadn't realized that his brother had made it back up. He noticed a red stain on the white haired man's sleeve and quickly found where it came from. "Brother, your arm."

"Yeah, I know." Gilbert examined his arm, but didn't seem alarmed by the gash near his elbow. "It's not bad. I can keep going."

Ludwig didn't bother to argue because he knew it was futile. If Gilbert was determined to get to the top, he would get to the top. Nothing could stop him once he set his mind to it. "I'll go first. I don't want you dripping blood on me."

"Always the tidy one," Gilbert said with a roll of his eyes.

Despite the multiple setbacks, the two reached the peak long before sunset. They knew going down would be faster, and weren't in any hurry to leave. Ludwig charted their route in his climbing journal while Gilbert slept. The journal was something the younger brother had started in his youth, and it was full of pictures, newspaper articles, dried flowers, and diagrams. He kept track of the dates and places of when and where the two of them had climbed. His latest entry was a news article written by some Bavarian newspaper. He had been quoted in an article about his last big climbing expedition with Gilbert, and laughed at how phony he sounded. The papers would do anything to make people sound like devoted Party members. He could care less about what the Nazis wanted. His only happiness came from climbing.

"Reading that stupid article again?"

Ludwig looked at his brother in surprise, but the elder Beilschmidt's eyes were still closed. He was apparently really good at pretending to be asleep. One of his red eyes opened to peer at his younger brother with a glimmer of mischief.

"You know what would really give those newspapers something to write about?"

"Not this again..."

"C'mon, West! We're the best climbers in Germany, the world even!" Gilbert insisted. He sat up and stared at his brother intently. "You and I both know that we could make it to the top. We could make history!"

"Or we could both kill ourselves," Ludwig replied. It wasn't the first time his brother had brought up climbing the Eiger. "Don't you remember that two people died there last year? Two Bavarians. Our countrymen."

"Don't give me that patriotic crap. We both know you don't give a flying-"

"Why do you want to climb it so badly?" Ludwig interrupted before Gil could say something vulgar.

"Why don't you?" the elder brother shot back. "Don't you think we're good enough?"

"Being good enough isn't the issue." Ludwig looked back at his journal to finish recording the day's route.

"Then you're scared."

"As you should be!" Ludwig was growing tired of his brother's stubbornness.

"Coward."

"It's better than being suicidal."

There was a long silence. Gilbert stood and looked at the village below, now only a small speck in the landscape. "We could do it, you know."

The younger brother sighed and closed his book. "Yes, I know."

They didn't talk about it again after that. The climb down was fast and quiet. Both were tired, and neither were in that great of a mood. They found their bikes where they had left them. The twisting mountains road felt much longer on the way back, and the sun beginning to set in the west lengthened the shadows making everything seem further away. Ludwig had never been more relieved to see their small little house than when he and Gilbert drove their bikes to a halt at its brick fence. The two of them dragged their feet toward the house, but stopped short at the gate.

A very petite woman stood near the front door with a strange device in her hand. Gilbert would have mistaken her for a man if it weren't for the purple ribbon tied in her short blonde hair. She seemed to sense their presence and turned around with the device still held up to her face, which Ludwig immediately recognized as a camera. It lowered just enough for the two to see a pair of stunningly green eyes.

Ludwig spoke before he could think. "Lili?"


	4. Refusals and Denial

Gilbert was the first get over the initial shock of the unexpected encounter.

"Hey! Whatcha doing back in town, pipsqueak?" He hopped the gate without bothering to open it and crushed the smaller woman in a big hug. "How's the big city? Like it better than little old Berchtesgaden?"

"Gilbert!" she squeaked out in surprise. "B-Berlin is wonderful, but sometimes I miss it out here."

By that time, Ludwig had made his way through the gate and watched in silence as his brother squeezed the life out of poor little Lili. The two finally seemed to notice his presence and broke apart wordlessly. It was Ludwig who finally spoke first.

"Hello, Lili."

"Hello, L-Ludwig." Lili inwardly cringed at the stutter.

"You never answered my brother's question."

"O-oh?"

"What brings you back to Berchtesgaden?"

She wasn't sure where to begin. There was so much that had happened since she left Berchtesgaden and said goodbye to the pair standing before her. She could start there, or she could start at her job, or she could start at the meeting a few days earlier. It was hard for her to make up her mind, especially with Ludwig's intense blue eyes fixed unwavering on her face, searching.

"Uh, um...w-what was the question again?"

Gilbert let out a boisterous laugh. "Kesesese! Same old Lili! You always got so nervous when my brother talked to you. I think you should stop being so scary, West."

Lili's wide eyes and Ludwig's slightly surprised ones met in a mutual revelation. Gilbert never knew. Leave it to the obnoxious elder Beilschmidt to be as dense as a rock. It never ceased to surprise Ludwig what an idiot of a brother he had.

"What's with that face, West?"

Gilbert's words stirred his younger brother out of his thoughts. "Nothing," he replied tersely.

"You're acting kind of weird," Gil said. "Are you sure you didn't fall and hit your head on a rock or something when I wasn't looking?"

"You were the one doing all the falling today, brother."

Lili gasped, and the two men turned to see her with a hand covering her mouth. They had almost forgotten she was there. "You fell?" she asked with concern.

"It wasn't that bad," Gilbert said as he scratched the back of his head in embarrassment, not realizing his action made his wound extremely visible.

If it was even possible, Lili's green eyes grew wider, and her face paled noticeably. "G-Gil...it's...it's...!"

"Heh? What is it?"

"It's...it's dripping!" she managed to get out.

"Wha-?" Gilbert twisted his arm to bet a better look at it. "Well, look at that." The gash near his elbow was dripping blood again, and he swore when he saw the large stain on his rolled up shirt sleeve. "This better not stain," he grumbled as he walked toward the small house. "I'll be back. I have to get a new shirt."

Ludwig rolled his eyes and sighed. Of course his brother would be more concerned about his shirt than his arm. The blonde man was about to follow his brother inside when he remembered Lili. She stood rigidly, but her whole body was trembling slightly. Her eyes were fixed on the ground where Gilbert's arm had dripped blood.

"You still dislike blood," Ludwig said as more of a statement than a question. Lili only nodded in response. "Staring at it won't help." She just nodded again as if not hearing a word he was saying. "Hey, look at me."

She didn't move. Ludwig knew he had to take her mind off the blood before she shook her small frame to pieces. Hesitantly, he moved closer to her and gently tilted her face toward his. Her gaze stayed locked on the ground for a moment before following the rest of her face upward. Their eyes met, and Ludwig found it very difficult to control the urge building in his chest. Standing with her felt so natural, so right. He wanted to bridge the gap between their lips. He had to. She had to know that nothing had changed since she left, that he was still waiting. He felt her warm breath on his lips, but he wanted more.

"Sorry it took so long!" Gilbert shouted as he walked out the door. Luckily, the two moved apart before he could notice anything. "I would've been out sooner, but this place is a mess."

"And whose fault is that?" It came out gruffer than Ludwig had intended, and Lili gave an awkward, choked laugh.

Gilbert watched the two of them in confusion. Had he missed something? He decided to ignore the two's strange behavior and continue with what he was going to say. Maybe he would ask Ludwig later. "So, I was thinking we should go out and do something tonight to celebrate since Lili's here. Sounds awesome, right West?"

Ludwig's brows furrowed. "What about curfew?"

"Forget curfew," Gilbert replied with a wave of his hand. "It's not like we can get in any more trouble than it is. Besides, I heard a bunch of other guys talking about going drinking tonight. They can't punish all of us, right?"

"I suppose..."

"Then it's settled!" Gil announced excitedly. "Hurry up and put your gear away so we can leave. All the good beer will be gone if we're late!"

Unfortunately, Ludwig's idea of fun did not line up with his older brother's. Not even remotely closely. He sat at a table in a very crowded, very noisy, very hot, very smoky, and very pungent beer hall. Apparently, a lot of other men thought like Gilbert because there were several groups of uniformed men also in the hall with large steins in their hands. Ludwig looked down at his drink and sighed. It had been empty for a long time, but he couldn't find the will to get up and push his way through the crowd for another one. This was not entertaining at all, it was torture.

An accordion droned in the background while a variety of other instruments played a lively dancing tune. Ludwig was not one for dancing. His height made it uncomfortable, and he wasn't particularly graceful either. So he preferred to sit and watch Gilbert twirl Lili around the dance floor filled with other couples. A few of the other soldiers were also dancing, but most joked loudly as they drank. Ludwig was so preoccupied watching them that he didn't notice Lili sit down across from him until she placed a large stein next to his old one with a cloud of foam floating on top.

"You looked like you could use another one," she said softly. He almost didn't hear her over the noise in the hall.

Her cheeks were flushed a bright red that matched the color of her delicate lips. Ludwig found himself mesmerized by such a small detail. He watched as she sipped out of a cup that seemed like a thimble in comparison with his stein, which he had gripped tightly in one hand.

"When did you start drinking?" he asked.

"O-oh! This isn't beer," she said quickly. "My brother wouldn't like it if I drank...I mean...I don't...my brother...I don't...I don't drink." Her face heated up, and Lili felt her heart fluttering uncontrollably in her chest. She hadn't meant to make such a fuss over a cup of water.

"It's probably for the best," Ludwig murmured as he took a big gulp of beer. "You're too small. You'd never be able to hold your liquor."

Lili wanted to argue, but she knew he was right. He usually was. Unlike her, he was calm, cool, collected, and always confident whether he was speaking, or climbing, or anything. Lili wished she was more like him. She had admired him from the moment they had met, and she had wanted to be by him and his equally confident brother all the time. Maybe it would rub off on her. Or maybe there were other reasons that she would never dare to speak out loud.

"There you are! I've been looking around for you two!" Gilbert sat himself down next to Lili and placed three beers on the table. "Whoa there, West. Looks like you already started without me," he said as he noticed the now two empty steins in front of his younger brother. He didn't hesitate to begin draining one of the three he had been carrying.

Ludwig watched his brother with mixed emotions. He needed to get a safe conversation started before Gilbert said something stupid. "Lili, you never did tell us why you're here."

Lili turned around from taking a picture of a knot of soldiers laughing at some vulgar joke. She had brought her camera along and had spent some time taking pictures on the way to the beer hall and inside. Both men were curious as to the reason why.

"Well..." she lowered her camera and shifted her gaze between the brothers. "I'm sure you know about the Eiger in Switzerland."

Ludwig mentally braced himself. "Of course we do!" his elder brother exclaimed. "'The Last Problem of the Alps'! It's only every climbers dream to get to the top! Whoever makes it first is going to be the most famous climbers of all time! I'm trying to convince West here to climb it with me!"

Lili's green eyes sparkled excitedly "Really?" That was not the reaction Ludwig was hoping for. "Will you?" she asked, turning to Ludwig.

"Why are you so concerned about this?" he questioned suspiciously.

She didn't seem to notice the ice in his voice. "The newspaper I work for wants to do a big story on the Eiger because there are teams gathering to climb it from all over the world. My brother thinks it would make you the pride of Germany if you make it up first! Heroes, even! Wouldn't it be wonderful? I've climbed with you before, and I'm sure you could do it."

"Hmph, heroes..." Ludwig reached for another beer. "I couldn't care less about being a hero for the Nazi Party. It's not worth throwing my life away."

"B-but..." Lili seemed to lose all of her enthusiasm. That wasn't the answer she thought she'd hear. "I thought that maybe you two would do it. I-it's not like you to run from a challenge."

Ludwig slammed his empty stein onto the table. "I can't seem to get this idea through your head or my brother's! It's not a challenge! It's suicide!" He stood up roughly and stomped away.

"West!" Gilbert called after him, but there was no reply. "Don't worry about him," he said to a shocked Lili. "He's been a grouch about the whole thing."

She wasn't listening. Like a ghost, Lili rose from the table and followed the tall blonde man. Gilbert almost went after her, but he decided against it. He was pretty sure the two didn't want him showing up during one of their intimate moments again. A faint smirk appeared on his face as he pulled the last beer toward himself. He found it amusing that they thought of him as the clueless one. At least he could come to terms with his emotions. He chuckled softly as he brought the beer stein to his lips.

Lili caught up with Ludwig just as he was about to mount his bike. He did so, but didn't ride off into the night like Lili expected him to. There was an uncomfortable silence as each waited for the other to speak. It was Lili who found the courage first.

"Why won't you do it?" she whispered. "I know you can."

"Because I'm not an idiot like my brother," he answered without turning. "I'm not going to die on that mountain."

"No, you're going to go up to the top and come back as a hero."

Her words surprised the tall man, and he turned to face her. He was surprised once more by the expression she wore. "I'm not going to be some dog for the Nazis," he said as he looked away.

"Why are you always like this?" Her voice was wavering. "Whenever we would climb, you would always leave me behind."

Ludwig was no longer certain if she was still talking about climbing the Eiger. He climbed off his bicycle and turned once more. Lili still had the defiant look she had worn before, but her lips were quivering. Ludwig knew that expression well. She never let herself cry, but her face led him to believe she was on the inside. He fought his urge to gather her up in a hug, and instead swept her short blonde hair out of her eyes. His lips were there and gone so fast that Lili wondered if she imagined them. Only a slight tingle remained on her forehead where they once were.

"But I always waited for you," he said as he got on his bike again. Lili didn't have time to respond as he rode away into the darkness.

Unlike some of the other men, Ludwig did not wake up the next morning hung over. This gave him an edge during his morning training. However, his mind was preoccupied with non-training related thoughts, so he tried his hardest to focus on anything other than what was in his head. He concentrated on the burn in his legs as he ran through the dense forest, on the ache in his arms as the crawled under rusted barbed wire, on the callouses on his hands as he pulled himself up a wooden wall. He commanded himself to think about training, not Lili leaving on a train.

"This is such a joke," Gilbert muttered beside him. "As if climbing this wall was a challenge. We could climb a wall three times this high in ten minutes."

Ludwig didn't reply. It wasn't until their regiment stopped for lunch that the two had a chance to speak again. Gilbert joined his brother on a log after getting his share of food. He glared suspiciously at some thick mush on his tin plate before scooping it onto Ludwig's.

"You need to eat more," the younger brother scolded.

"But it tastes like garbage," Gil whined. "Besides, you eat enough for both of us."

"Then don't complain to me when you're starving later."

"Fine. Then don't complain to me when that crap gives you indigestion." The two ate in relative silence for a while. Gilbert finished first and eyed the bread on his brother's plate. Ludwig wordlessly gave it to him. "Sho, sheriously, why don' ya want t' cwimb te Eiger?" Gil asked with a mouth full of bread.

"If you're going to start with this again, I want my bread back."

"I'm being serious, West!" Gilbert said after he swallowed. "Why are you being so stubborn about this?"

"Because I climb for me! Not you, not the Party, me! I'm not going to throw everything away to make some stupid politicians happy!"

His brother stood. "If that's how you feel, you can keep your bread." The white haired man threw the half eaten bread back at his brother and walked away.

Ludwig wanted to go after him, but his pride wouldn't allow it. His stupid, overinflated, masculine pride.


	5. The Long Ride

Lili was faced with a very difficult task ahead of her. She sat tensely outside of her brother's office while he concluded some kind of meeting inside. Her hand instinctively reached up to tug on the bow she always wore in her hair. It happened to be pale pink that day to match the color of her dress. Once she stopped nervously adjusting it, her hands found their way to the camera on her lap. It seemed to her than her hands always had to be doing something when she was anxious, and she didn't think she had ever been more anxious before in her life.

The door to the office suddenly opened, and a parade of men filed out noisily. Vash appeared in the doorway and silently motioned for Lili to enter, which she did apprehensively. He seemed to notice her tense mood, and began speaking before she could find something to say.

"They said no, didn't they?"

"How did...but I...yes," she admitted.

"It's unfortunate," he said with a sigh. "However, it would seem that not all men are fools. The North Face of the Eiger is a beast quite unlike any other." Vash sat at his desk and crossed his arms. "We may not be able to write about a German team, but it seemed like a shame to not write about it at all, so that's why I've decided to go to Switzerland and cover the story myself."

"W-what?" Lili couldn't contain her surprise. "To Switzerland? By yourself?"

"Yes, Switzerland. It's been a while, and I wouldn't mind going back. But don't think I'm going there for vacation, dear sister. If one of the other teams make history, the Berliner Zeitung has to be there."

Lili was speechless. Not only did she fail to convince the Beilschmidts to climb the Eiger, but her bother was going there anyway. Without her. Suddenly, she felt very small and alone. She almost didn't hear Vash dismiss her, and she certainly didn't remember walking out of the office. It really shouldn't have mattered to her because the brothers weren't going to climb anyway. That one thought gave her comfort as she left to find odd jobs to do for the other journalists.

Little did she know, but Gilbert found himself in a very similar situation back in Berchtesgaden. He stood at attention in front of his company sergeant's desk as the officer read a small piece of paper. The man gave the elder Beilschmidt a sideways glance before setting the paper down and folding his arms.

"So, let me see if I have it right. You want to have off all of July, and for what?"

"A...wedding," Gilbert answered. It was the first thing that came to mind, and he said it without thinking.

The officer snorted with laughter. "A wedding? Really? And tell me exactly who it is that's getting married."

"A close family member..."

"Yes?"

"Very close..."

"Will you spit it out already, Beilschmidt?!"

Gilbert hadn't thought this far ahead. He had been nervous enough as it was to ask for time off that it never occurred to him that he needed a reason. A very solid, very believable reason. Ludwig had probably been right to label him the idiot of the pair.

"It's my wedding, company sergeant."

Gilbert turned in surprise to see Ludwig walk calmly into the office and stand at attention. The two hadn't spoken since their quarrel during training, and Gil hadn't expected his brother to save his skin like this. He hadn't expected to see him at all. The younger brother didn't make eye contact, so Gilbert turned his attention back to the company sergeant.

"Oh really? Then why hasn't anyone heard about this?" the officer asked with a dubious voice.

"We wanted to keep it a surprise as you may have guessed by my brother's reluctance in telling you, sir."

"A surprise...yes. Well, a month is an awfully long time for a wedding." He paused and looked for any reaction from the two in front of him. "I'm afraid I can't give it to you."

"Please, sir, this is very important," Gilbert said with a straight face. Having Ludwig with him eased his nerves, and he discovered a calm he didn't think he possessed.

"I'm sure it is," the officer muttered. "That's exactly why I'm not giving you slackers any time off."

"If you will not give it to us, we will take matters into our own hands." There was a threat in Ludwig's voice.

"Well, you're not getting it! And that's final!" the company sergeant roared.

"Then we resign." Ludwig turned and left without another word.

"Have fun running this crap-hole, bird face!" Gilbert shouted as he ran after his brother.

The two didn't speak again until they reached their house. They left their bikes carelessly strewn near the porch and entered through the front door. Gilbert sat in a worn chair while Ludwig continued on into the kitchen. He came back with two glasses of beer and gave one to his older brother.

"So, I'm getting married," he said after a moment.

Gilbert lowered his glass. "Yeah, I guess you are."

"When were you going to tell me about this?"

"I didn't think you would come."

There was a long silence. Gilbert drained his glass and set it down on the floor. The one table in the room was covered with supplies and maps, and he didn't want to risk setting the glass anywhere it might fall. His gaze flickered toward Ludwig, but the younger man's eyes were distant.

"I said something stupid, and I should apologize," he said.

Gilbert looked to him again in confusion. "What?"

"I said I only climb for myself, but that was a lie. If you want to climb the Eiger, who am I to stop you?"

A wide smile spread across Gilbert's face. "Really, West? You're being serious?" The faintest of smiles pulled on Ludwig's lips. "Awesome!" Gil jumped out of his chair. "Let's get this show on the road!"

"Don't you mean wedding?" Ludwig asked wryly.

Gilbert put a hand to his chest in faked surprise. "Ludwig, did you just use humor?"

"I suppose I did."

"Making history already, West. I think we're off to a pretty good start."

"You should stop before I change my mind."

But Ludwig didn't change his mind. In fact, he worked harder than Gilbert to make their plan a reality. There was steel to purchase, pitons to be forged, crampons to buy, picks to sharpen, ropes to wind, and much more. The two spent many nights checking and double checking supplies. They rationed and scraped together every mark that they could to cover expenses, but they still seemed to fall short.

"We still need about fifty marks for the train," Gilbert said with a sigh.

"Or we could ride our bicycles," Ludwig replied without batting an eye. He was scribbling something down on a map and hadn't even bothered to look up.

"Yeah, right." Gil chuckled to himself, but became nervous when Ludwig didn't laugh either. "Wait, you're not serious, aren't you?"

"How else do you suggest we get there?"

"But that's like, a thousand kilometers from here!"

"Only six hundred," Ludwig corrected. "Give or take. It should take less than a week, and it'll be absolutely free."

"Unless you count our slave labor," Gilbert muttered under his breath.

Despite how much he complained, they still ended up riding their bikes to the small hamlet of Kleine Scheidegg at the foot of the Eiger. The pair stuck mainly to dirt roads that took them through beautiful Alpine scenery. They had to replace a popped tire once, and it only rained for a few hours not long after they started. The temperature became increasingly cooler as their route rose in altitude. Any signs of summer slowly dwindled as if someone had turned the clock back to early spring. Snow glistened on distant mountain peaks as they rode closer to Switzerland, and they occasionally woke to find a fine layer of frost clinging to their tent.

It was exactly one week since their departure when they arrived at the foot of the Eiger. There was a flat, grassy field that radiated out from the craggy mountain face, and on a hill in the distance, there was a small group of buildings that Ludwig assumed was Kleine Scheidegg. Most of them were hotels and resorts for the spectators and media that arrive without fail to watch every time anyone attempted to scale the North Face. Gilbert dismounted from his bike and laid down on the grass, which was surprisingly aromatic for looking so scraggly.

"Let's never, ever, ever do that again," he said.

"That was the easy part," Ludwig told him as he began to unpack the tent from the little trailer hitched to the back of his bicycle. "You'll probably say that after we reach the top too."

"Yeah, probably," Gil agreed with a tired smile. "But then it won't matter how tired we are because we'll be the most famous people alive."

Ludwig scoffed, but deep down he knew it was true. He stopped unpacking long enough to admire the sheer magnitude of the mountain he was to climb. It sent a thrill of excitement down his spine that he could barely contain.


	6. Distance is but Perspective

Dip, swirl, rinse, repeat. Dip, swirl, rinse, repeat. Lili thought of nothing else as she labored in the darkness to develop the pictures she had taken in Berchtesgaden. It was a tedious task, but someone had to do it. Even if the article about the Beilschmidts would never be written, it would be a shame to let the undeveloped film go to waste. A small sigh escaped Lili's lips as she thought about the unfruitful trip. She hung up the last photo to dry and let her mind wander over the thing she had been avoiding for the last few days.

Ludwig.

There were a few pictures of the blonde man that Lili had taken when he wasn't looking. Her gaze found its way to the photos, and she was soon admiring them. This one captured his strong jaw and the way his lips allows themselves to curve up into the smallest of smiles when he thought he wasn't being watched. This one captured the perfect moment when both light and shadow danced on his strong, stubborn face in the evening gloom. This one captured the light dusting of pink that colored his cheeks as some thought Lili could never identify occupied his mind.

"These are quite good you know."

Lili let out a high squeak of surprise and whirled to face the intruder. Her eyes were met by Vash's green ones. He had a slight smirk on his face and had his arms crossed. It seemed to Lili that he always had his arms crossed if they weren't busy doing something else.

"B-brother! I-I wasn't expecting y-you!" she squeaked out.

"Yes, I'm sorry if I startled you." His words were directed toward her, but his gaze was focused very intently on the drying photographs. "These are excellent."

"Oh! T-thank you."

Vash continued without looking at his sister. "I was thinking that I would need someone to take pictures on my trip." He finally glanced her way. "Would you be interested in coming with me to Switzerland?"

Lili gasped. "Would I? I-I mean, I would! Yes! Very much so!"

"Perfect," Vash said with a smile. "You'll need to pack tonight. We're leaving in the morning." He placed a hand on her head before moving toward the door, then paused. "Don't forget to bring more film."

Lili nodded, and he stepped out of the small, dark room without another word. It was almost more than Lili could bear. She would be going to Switzerland to take pictures like a real photojournalist! It took her a moment to locate her chair and sit down. Her heart felt like it was about to burst from her chest. This was Lili's chance to make things right. Her trip to Berchtesgaden had been a disappointment, but maybe this one would be different. Maybe she would see something amazing happen.

It was all she could think about on the train ride the next morning. She had never been out of Germany before, and the thought of watching the making of history on top of traveling to a different country made Lili as restless as a small child. But because she was with Vash, she had to act ladylike, otherwise he might regret asking her to come along. The last think she wanted was her brother to think she couldn't behave herself.

To avoid looking as restless as she felt, Lili watched the world outside go rushing past her window. The scenery was quite similar to what she saw on her train ride to Berchtesgaden. Mountains in the distance with their snow covered peaks glimmered in the sun, and the lush pines next to the train tracks waved their heavy boughs in greeting as Lili sped past them. It was so peaceful that she wished she could get off the train and lay in the fragrant grass as butterflies kiss her face and the sun warms her skin. The image seemed so real that she thought she could feel something prodding her shoulder. Then the feeling intensified, and her eyes flew open in surprise.

"We've arrived in Kleine Scheidegg," Vash said softly.

"R-really?" Lili abruptly stood up. Her head spun, and she had to brace herself against her seat. "That didn't take very long."

"You slept for most of the ride," her brother replied with amusement in his voice.

"Oh, I'm sorry." She had been so excited that she hardly slept a wink the night before.

"It's nothing to apologize for, but we should hurry up and exit the train before we miss our stop."

The thing that surprised Lili the most about Kleine Scheidegg was how crowed it was. People milled about through every bit of available space, and the locals were using it to their advantage. It would have been impossible to count how many vendors were selling postcards picturing mountains and goats or shouting about fresh cheeses and meats. Most of the people there looked like tourists, but Lili noticed several men who stood out from the rest. They didn't speak, only watched, and they had eyes that were sharp like a hawk's. In a way, she was reminded of the look Vash always wore when searching for the golden story in a basket full of plain, uninteresting ones.

"There are other papers here," Vash murmured under his breath. "Be very careful, sister. Do not tell others why we are here. The last thing we need is a group of other journalists following our every move because they're not resourceful enough to find their own story."

He began walking without waiting for Lili to reply, and she followed as quickly as she could while toting her large suitcase. It may have seemed like a mistake to bring so much, but she regretted nothing. The temperature was much cooler than it was in Berlin, and she already wished for the woolen scarf and knit cap in her suitcase along with several other articles of warm clothing. It felt more like March or early April than July.

The two finally arrived at a large resort. They had to pass a team of three men being interviewed by several reporters. This caught Lili's attention, and she stopped to hear what was going on.

"So, what is it you three do here exactly?"

"We're part of the rescue team of course!" one of the men shouted. His bright blue eyes shined behind his glasses, and a curl of dirty blonde hair stood up out of the hat he had crammed on his head.

"What do you think are the chances of one of the teams making it to the top?"

"That's very hard to say," said another man, who seemed to be the very opposite of the first. He spoke softly, but his breath tickled a long curl of hair that hung over his face. "It would be exciting to see a group succeed, wouldn't it?"

"Is this what you would consider perfect climbing weather?"

"I wouldn't count on it to last," answered the third man with an almost bored sounding voice. His large eyebrows did not match the wild blonde hair the poked out from under his hat. "This weather is so bloody unpredictable that it might be raining one minute and sunny the next. You can't count on it to last for the time it'll take any one of those groups to get to the top and back."

"There you are." Vash appeared beside Lili with a scowl on his face. "Don't fall behind or you'll get lost."

"S-sorry." Lili cast one last glance at the men being interviewed before following Vash. It would be awful if they really had to rescue someone off the mountain.

She made sure to stay right behind her brother until they reached the front desk. The man checked his reservation book for their names, and then handed them two silver keys. Their rooms were upstairs, so Lili had to carry her suitcase up a flight of stairs and down the dimly lit hall to get to her room. Even though she had slept on the train, she was still tired enough that she wanted nothing more than to crawl into her bed and sleep some more.

"Dinner is being served in the dining room," Vash said just as she got her door open. "Take ten minutes to change. I'll meet you down there."

Lili didn't have the strength to protest. She nodded and watched as her brother entered his room. Darkness enveloped her as she stepped into her own. It took her a moment to find a lamp and turn it on. A soft yellow light illuminated the room, which was cozier than she had imagined it would be. She stepped toward the large glass doors that lead to the balcony and opened them. A cool mountain breeze floated into her room bringing with it the smell of rain and heather. Her mind drifted from one thought to another as she traced the outline of three distinct, distant peaks with her eyes. The Mönch, the Jungfrau, and the Eiger. If only the Beilschmidts had agreed to come. She thought they were the only other ones who would appreciate the grandeur before her.

On the grassy field below the resort, the two brothers sat hunched by a small campfire, completely unaware of the thoughts had on their behalf. Ludwig stirred something in a small tin pot as Gilbert watched impatiently. His stomach protested its emptiness loudly, and he acted as translator so that Ludwig would know exactly what was being said.

"I'm hungry! When can we eat?" the elder brother whined.

"Asking about it won't make it go faster."

"What's for dinner anyway?"

"Barley soup," Ludwig answered.

"Again? We had that yesterday!"

"And we'll probably have it tomorrow too."

"Bleh! Why don't you make something else for once?"

"Would you like to do the cooking?" Ludwig asked, his patience growing thinner and thinner. He filled a bowl for Gil and gave it to the obnoxious man.

"Nah, I'm good." Gilbert accepted a bowl of soup, which was more like a porridge, and began shoveling it into his mouth. "Ahhhh! Cwap, West! Dis ish hawt!"

"Serves you right."

"Hmph. It seems like everyone here has to scream like barbarians." A dark haired man with glasses stepped out of the shadows toward the light. There was a woman behind him with long, flowing hair that reached her waist and shined in the flickering firelight. The two sat down without an invitation.

"'Oo are 'oo?" Gilbert asked with his mouth still full.

"Name's Elizabeta Héderváry, and this is my partner, Roderich Edelstein," the woman answered.

Ludwig nodded. "I'm Ludwig Beilschmidt, and that's my brother Gilbert." Gil waved his spoon rather childishly.

"We're surprised to see you here. No one has said anything about the Nazis sending a team," Roderich said as he adjusted his glasses.

There was an awkward pause in the conversation "We're not the Party's dogs," Ludwig eventually replied.

"Well, you sure do eat like dogs. What is that? Baby mush?" Elizabeta laughed. Then she looked around before changing the subject. "To be honest, the four of us are the only ones who stand a chance of making it to the top of the North Face anyway."

"Really?" Ludwig watched the pair closely. Their accents suggested that they were Austrians, but the fact that they hadn't disclosed any information about themselves made him wary.

"What makes you two think you're so good?" Gilbert finally had an empty mouth and was also watching the two suspiciously. "Besides, you have a woman in your group. That automatically puts you at a disadvantage."

"What makes you think a woman can't climb?" Elizabeta questioned with narrowed eyes.

"Well, they're small and weak. And they talk too much. Not to mention they're complainers." The older brother lifted a finger for every point he made.

"Then it sounds like our teams are even since both have women in them." She smiled wickedly at the elder Beilschmidt, and Ludwig had to try very hard to hold back his laughter. Even the prissy looking Roderich smiled at Elizabeta's stinging words. "We should be on our way before you Germans try to annex our team," she said as she and her partner stood. "See you two from the top." The two disappeared back into the darkness.

Ludwig shook his head once he figured they were long gone. He still couldn't understand why the Nazi's wanted a country full of people like that. The fire crackled loudly, which pulled Ludwig out of his thoughts, and he cast a quick glance at his brother. Gilbert sat open mouthed with his eyes fixed in the darkness.

"You'll catch flies with your mouth like that, brother," Ludwig joked as he helped himself to some soup.

Gilbert silently closed his mouth, but didn't turn toward his younger brother. A half smirk slowly turned up one corner of his mouth. "I kinda like that girl."

His brother rolled his eyes. "Okay, just hurry up and eat. I want to go to sleep soon."

The white haired man did as he was told. Both ate without speaking, but their minds were too busy to realize how quiet it was. They finished their meal with two very different girls occupying their thoughts.


	7. Unforeseen Accidents

Lili was caught somewhere between deep curiosity and a foreboding sense of claustrophobia. The little train car she rode in with her brother was not as smooth as the train they took to Kleine Scheidegg and rattled in a way that made Lili nervous. It made its way through the inside of the Eiger at a steady, but not very fast, pace and eventually came to a stop at a large cave, which opened up into an observation window. Many other tourists were on the train as well and exited along with the siblings. There were even a few of the men Vash pointed out as rival journalists, and Lili wondered if they were following her brother.

They had to pass a small hut that was built in the cave to get to the window. An energetic man greeted people as they walked by the rickety wooden building and occasionally answered questions people had. His boisterous laugh echoed off the cave walls as he and a group of young girls exchanged pleasantries. Lili watched the whole scene with a discerning eye, alert for any and all opportunities for a picture. She clutched her camera tightly as she snapped a photo of the laughing young people, still unable to shake the feeling of confinement that plagued her upon entering the mountain. There were tons upon tons of cold rock above her head after all.

She peeled herself away from watching them once she realized her brother had disappeared. He had gone on ahead to the gallery window and was taking in the view when Lili caught up to him. The air was much thinner here than in the hamlet below, and she wrapped her scarf around her neck a few more times. It was such a cold and unforgiving environment that she couldn't imagine anyone actually spending several days on the mountain face. Yet there were several teams gathered below that came to do just that.

"It's incredible," Vash said, but Lili didn't know if he was talking to her or not. "To attempt a climb of this magnitude, it's incredible." He finally turned his attention to his little sister. "I hope you're getting pictures. Don't forget why we're here."

"Y-yes!" Lili stuttered. "Sorry!"

She focused her gaze on the mountain around her. Snow and ice swirled through the air around her and settled in glistening white banks against the mountain. Dark black stone peeked through the blanketing of white creating patterns of light and shadow across the whole North Face. Lili took several pictures of the near vertical mountain wall above her head, and then looked downward to capture the sprawling foot of the Eiger. She leaned further over the guardrail of the window to get a better shot. A cold breeze tugged at the ribbon in her hair, but she could hardly feel it. The moment was hers, all she had to do was press a button and freeze it forever.

She happened to be standing on a patch of ice, and her feet slipped out from underneath her just as she was about to immortalize the image in her lens. A horrible feeling gripped Lili's stomach as she began to fall over the railing. She had been so scared of the mountain collapsing on her, but she never imagined that she could fall off it. Everything moved so slowly, and Lili closed her eyes a moment before it all suddenly jerked back into reality. She felt no pain. She felt no fear. It was just really cold. She wished she had brought an extra scarf.

"That was a close one there, miss. You could have died!"

Lili's eyes snapped open in a heartbeat. She was met with the sight of the mountain from a rather odd angle. About half of her was over the railing, and the other half was still on the balcony of the gallery window, even though her feet weren't touching the ground. A strong hand held the back of her coat and helped pull her back to safety.

"It's a good thing you're so small because I probably couldn't have caught you if you weren't."

"I-I'm so s-sorry." Lili's teeth chattered, and her knees shook. She couldn't even feel her hands anymore because they had her camera in a death grip.

"Hey, don't worry about. Just, you know, don't do that again. I can't promise I'll save you next time."

She turned to see the cheerful man from before. His green eyes sparkled kindly at her as he smiled. "I w-won't do it again. I-I promise."

"Okay, okay. No need to look so upset," he said with a small laugh.

"T-thank you for saving m-me, Mr...um..."

"Antonio," he finished as he shook her hand vigorously. "Antonio Fernández Carriedo."

Lili smiled. Antonio seemed like the kind of person that could get along with anyone. "Thank you, Mr. Antonio."

"Lili." Vash reappeared, unaware of what just happened to his sister. She had been so engrossed with her photography that she hadn't noticed the lack of his presence until now. "The train is leaving soon. We should go."

"Okay." She followed her brother back into the cave. "Thank you again!" she called over her shoulder. Antonio waved happily in response.

The ride back down the mountain was quiet and uneventful. Being inside the mountain didn't bother Lili anymore, and she spent the time thinking about the North Face. The nickname "Death Wall" made more sense to her now. Howling winds, freezing temperatures, stinging snow, and minimal visibility could turn the mountain face into a tomb. She silently thanked the heavens that the Belischmidts had decided not to come.

"I want to interview some of the teams," Vash said suddenly in a low voice. He glanced around to make sure the two weren't being eavesdropped on before continuing. "If we can get a few words from the team that makes it to the top before they start, we'll have an edge on every other newspaper in the world."

"Yes, I think that's a wonderful idea," Lili agreed.

The train screeched to a halt. People stood and began disembarking. "Stay close," Vash whispered. He guided his sister through the crowd while keeping a careful eye out for any other journalists. "Go right," he said. Lili did as she was told, and the two silently disengaged themselves from the rest of the bustling crowd.

They walked away from the small station and back toward the mountain, and a large grassy glen stretched out before them. The air was much warmer and denser than it had been at the gallery window. Lili caught the scent of something green and fresh, but couldn't say for sure what it was. To her, it was what she imagined spring must smell like. Tiny buds peeked up at her from the grass with the promise of beautiful flowers in a week or two. Lili was too distracted by the just waking plants to notice how large the field really was. But Vash saw. He knew it would be a long walk to the tiny spots in the distance that were actually tents.

Ludwig also knew better than his partner what a long journey he had. The near vertical North Face loomed over his head, and he found the sheer magnitude of his task daunting. It was one thing to talk about climbing a mountain. It was quite another to actually do it. He adjusted the bag of supplies on his back to diffuse his tension, but he knew nothing except climbing would calm his nerves. The steady rhythm of working muscles soothed the tall man more than anything else.

"Are you ready?" he asked his brother.

"Whenever you are," Gilbert answered as he cracked his knuckles. "What's the plan?"

"Straight up the Rote Fluh. Then we have to cross the two ice fields and eventually up to the White Spider. After that it's-"

"Hallelujah," Gil finished with a soft voice. "Let's get started. The sooner we plant this bag of gear, the sooner we can eat!"

Ludwig didn't have to be told twice. He reached for his first handhold and began his ascent. The two climbed at a steady pace, if not a little fast. The younger Beilschmidt could hear his brother's stomach rumbling below and agreed that food would be their top priority once they finished. Unlike some of the other teams, they took their climb seriously. They weren't there to look the part. They were there to stun the world.

The two eventually stopped at a crevice Ludwig had spotted earlier that morning. He removed the bag from his back and carefully placed it inside the hollow. The first leg of their actual climb would be much easier without the unnecessary weight of their bivouac sacks, crampons, and a few extra ropes. Gilbert chuckled softly to himself as he partially obscured the bag with rocks. The thought of having an edge over the Austrians pulled his mouth up into a sly grin. Victory would taste so sweet.

"I think that should do," Ludwig said once the bag had been decently hidden. "We'll come back for this tomorrow."

"Just think, West. In a few days, we'll be the most famous people alive."

"We have to make it to the top first," Ludwig reminded his ambitious brother. "Let's settle for dinner first."

"Now you're talking!" Gil began to climbing down before Ludwig could react.

The climb down went much faster than the climb up, mostly because they rappelled as much as they could. Once the final piton was pulled from the rocks, the brothers moved in the direction of their makeshift camp. The sun was just beginning it's descent toward the mountain peaks, but the air was already growing cool as they walked. Ludwig enjoyed the brisk Swiss air. It reminded him of Berchtesgaden. The strange gathering of tents seemed to grow larger as the brothers approached, but something was different than when they had left. A few of the other teams were talking excitedly with a pair of people Ludwig had never seen before. Gilbert noticed them too.

"Another team?" he wondered in a low voice.

"Possibly." It was the only explanation that seemed to make sense to Ludwig.

"Where do you think they're from?"

"Hard to say. Americans maybe."

Gil snorted. "Yeah, right!" He laughed, but soon grew quiet. "Actually, I wouldn't be surprised." Ludwig was caught off guard by Gilbert's serious tone and turned to look at his brother, who wore a very blank expression. "They probably think climbing the Eiger will finally convince the Brits to give them their independence."

Ludwig allowed himself to smile. Gilbert might have actually had a point. It was about time the Americans stopped going along with whatever the Brits said. At least the Brits hadn't shown up. Between the French and the Italians, there hadn't been much quiet, and the younger Beilschmidt could only imagine what kind of ruckus a team of Brits would have caused. Especially with the French around.

"Well, whatever. I'm hungry!" Gilbert threw his gear on the ground next to the brothers' tent and plopped onto the ground. "Make some dinner, West."

"What's the magic word?"

"Now."

Ludwig dropped an empty bucket on his brother's obnoxious head. "You get some water and then you can have dinner."

Gilbert stood up and held his arm up at an angle. "Yes, my Führer! I will be glad to get your water, sir! Is there anything else you need, sir?"

"Get out of here before I turn that bucket into a hat you can't take off."

Gilbert took off before his brother could make good on his word. Ludwig always said stuff like that, but Gil had learned the hard way that sometimes the younger brother wasn't kidding. The white haired man walked to a small stream at a leisurely pace. Just because he had to do the work didn't mean he had to do it quickly. He stooped down and got himself a drink of cool water before filling the bucket with the clean liquid. Someone could probably make a fortune selling that stuff, even if it was just water.

The walk back was taking longer since Gilbert's bucket was now full. It was just plain awkward walking with a full container of water. The elder Beilschmidt felt off balanced when he carried it with one arm, and sometimes he spilled water on himself when his leg accidentally hit the side of the bucket. He was concentrating so intently on trying to stay dry that he didn't notice one of the newcomers until he almost ran into her.

"Sorry about that!" he said as he moved out of the way just in time. "Hey, wait a minute! Lili! What are you doing here?"

"Gilbert?" Lili lowered her camera from her face. She had been poised to take a picture when Gil almost ran her over. "W-what are you doing here? If you're here, does that mean...?"

"Yeah, West's here too," Gilbert told her. "Our tent's over there. We were just about to eat. You know what? You should join us! We're having barley soup. Don't hate it until you've tried it. Trust me, it's better than it sounds."

"Oh, that sounds wonderful, but I'll have to decline. I'm here for work you see-"

"Work?"

"Yes, work. I'm here with my brother, Vash. His newspaper is covering the big climb, so we're interviewing the teams."

"Sounds like loads of fun." Gilbert let the sarcasm drip off his words. "How's that going?"

"Well..."

"That's it! The French have given up as well! I don't understand why the lot of them show up if they're not even going to climb! First it's the Italians, then it's the French! Is there no end to the cowardice bred by our neighbors?!"

Lili's smile fell at the sight of the irritation marring Vash's face. He didn't get angry often. She knew it was frustrating to interview the climbers, none of whom spoke German. Lili had taken enough French classes to understand a little of what the French were saying, and it wasn't anything good. The team had been a man and woman, both blonde, with overly carefree attitudes. Francis Bonnefoy, the man, had laughed when Vash asked him about his climbing plans, which was a better response than what he got from the Italian team.

The two brothers from Italy agreed about climbing the North Face as much as their personalities agreed. One brother, a crybaby named Feliciano, appeared to be on the verge of tears as soon as anyone mentioned the North Face. The other, a particularly moody man named Lovino, would loudly declare to anyone who was nearby that he would be the first to the top and make everyone else look like losers. At least, that's what Vash said since Lili didn't speak a word of Italian. Some of the words were similar to French, but not enough for her to understand.

"I'd hate to stand by and watch the Austrians claim victory," Vash muttered darkly.

"Um, brother? This is my friend Gilbert...the one I told you about," Lili said softly.

"Gilbert? Gilbert Beilschmidt?" A small glimmer of hope shined in Vash's eyes. "Is your partner here? Are you climbing?"

"You bet we are!" Gilbert exclaimed loudly. "We're going to leave everyone in the dust, and you can quote that!"

Lili saw the wheels turning in her brother's head. He had that look he always gets when he smelled a good story. "Would the two of you like to join us for dinner at the resort?" he asked eventually.

The elder Beilschmidt almost fell to his knees with joy. "As long as they're not serving barley soup, I'll eat anything!"

"Perfect." Vash wore a small, but triumphant, smile. "Maybe we should invite the Austrians as well. We'll have to get used to them soon anyway."


	8. But a Moment

Ludwig glanced self-consciously around the dining room at the smartly dressed people eating their evening meal. He was wearing a button down shirt he had worn once already, dirty trousers, and his climbing boots. It had never occurred to him that he would need nice clothes, not that he really owned anything that fit the bill. Gilbert and the Austrians were also underdressed, but it did nothing to ease Ludwig's mind. He tugged at his limp collar. The air was stuffy from all the people and their lit cigarettes, and he found himself feeling uncomfortably hot. It also didn't help that Lili was sitting right across from him.

She was dressed simply in a sky blue dress with a matching ribbon, which made her bright green eyes stand out like glittering chips of emerald. The light, tinkling sound of her laughter pushed all other sounds aside and was music to Ludwig's ears. He didn't know what had made her laugh, but he wished she would do it again. Her shining eyes met his, and the world seemed to stop. All that existed was Lili and her gentle smile.

"So, how are you two planning to get to the top?"

Vash's sudden question broke Ludwig's reverie. He reluctantly turned his attention to the strict looking man and struggled create a coherent thought. "Uh, well..."

Luckily, Gilbert came to his brother's rescue. "We'd rather not talk about it in front of the competition," he said.

"No point in keeping secrets," Elizabeta murmured as if bored with the whole affair. She and Roderich had been quiet for most of the meal. "Your route won't matter when you lose."

"If we lose," Ludwig corrected, "which we won't."

"A lot of confidence coming from the Nazi's errand boys," Roderich said with a hint of spite in his voice. He adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose and continued to eat without looking at the brothers.

A tense silence fell over the group as each side of the table faced off. Ludwig had to place a warning hand on Gil's shoulder. The elder Beilschmidt was poised to rise from his seat and do some unspeakable act of violence on the dark haired Austrian. Elizabeta watched him closely with a knife clutched tightly in her hand, the meat she had been cutting forgotten. The first one to move would spark a flurry of commotion that promised to end poorly. Lili shrank away from the intense energy between the two teams, but Vash just smiled as if he had planned this all along.

"Lili, why don't you play the piano for us?" he calmly suggested. The dining room had grown empty during the standoff, and a beautiful piano now sat unnoticed in a corner.

"O-okay!" she agreed. Carefully, she stood from the table and made her way to the piano bench. "What should I play?" she asked once the others had gathered around her.

"Anything is fine," her brother replied.

Lili nodded and placed her hands on the keys. Playing the piano was one of the joys in her life. Music took her to a place where she had no worries or pains, somewhere where she didn't have to think about anything except the stringing notes into a song. Her fingers began to create a melody she had heard on the radio recently. It was light and spritely, but with a faint trace of something sadder. The base lines melded with the higher notes to create a rich sound full of harmonies and complimenting chords. The final notes hung in the air before being met with enthusiastic applause.

"That was great, squirt!" Gilbert said excitedly. "You should have played for us before!"

"I admire you talent, miss." Roderich nodded appreciatively. "May I join you for a duet?"

"Oh, of course," Lili said in surprise. His gesture was extremely unexpected. It was the first time he had even spoken to her.

The Austrian sat down on the other half of the bench and lightly placed his hands on the keys. A familiar melody began to fill the air as his fingers coaxed the piano to sing. Lili immediately recognized the song as something written by Beethoven, and she was soon playing a harmony that melded and flowed with the music Roderich produced. A small smile lit up her face as the melody evolved and changed. It was still Beethoven, but in a way it wasn't.

"Bach?" she asked tentatively.

"You have good ears," Roderich replied with the closest thing to a smile anyone had seen yet. "How about this?"

"Mozart," she concluded after only a few moments of listening to the changing music.

It morphed from Mozart to Chopin and back to Beethoven. The final chords were reminiscent of the start of the strange song, and was met with appreciative applause. Ludwig grudgingly clapped his hands together. He didn't know why he felt so unhappy about the whole situation. Lili's gentle smile should have made him feel warm and peaceful, but instead something darker filled his mind. He was jealous. Jealous that he wasn't funny like Gilbert or musically inclined like Roderich. Jealous that he couldn't make her smile.

"I'm leaving," he said to his brother.

"What? West, where are you going?"

"We have to start early tomorrow if we're making it to the top first. I want to get some decent sleep."

"Don't you want to stay a little longer? Things were just getting to be fun!"

By now, all eyes were on the tall blonde man. The Austrians watched indifferently, and Vash seemed interested in what his reply would be. "No," Ludwig finally said. "I'm leaving. Don't stay out too long."

Everyone watched him exit the dining room. "D-did we do something wrong?" Lili asked in a tiny voice.

"Nah. West just gets that way sometimes...but I wonder..." The elder Beilschmidt sighed. "I better go after him. Thanks for the food! It was great!" he called over his shoulder as he went after his brother.

Gilbert almost caught up to Ludwig about halfway to their tent. The younger brother didn't turn as Gil shouted his name. "West! West! Hey! Wait up!"

But he didn't slow down. If anything, he walked faster than he did before. Gilbert cursed under his breath and pushed himself a little faster. Instead of slowing down as he got closer, he put on an extra burst of speed and tackled Ludwig to the ground.

"What's your problem, eh?" Gilbert asked between breaths. He sat on his brother's chest and leaned in toward his face. "Why'd you have to go running off like that?"

"Because we were wasting time," Ludwig said without emotion.

"Well, you didn't have to be so rude about it. Lili got upset you know."

A flash of something momentarily showed on the blonde's face. "Get off me.

"Fine." Gilbert let his brother get up. "But I know what's going on between you two."

"There is nothing between us," Ludwig said as the two entered their campsite.

"You say that all you want, but it won't make it true.

"Just go to bed. We have an early morning."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever."

But the weather had other ideas. The brothers woke up to the sound of rain pounding on their tent with enough force to be painful. Gilbert stuck his head outside and immediately regretted it. His hair was completely soaked, and his face was red and stung. He stripped off his shirt, which was wet as well, and laid back down on his makeshift bed.

"I'm not climbing in that," he said simply.

"I agree." Ludwig had been smart and stayed inside even though he had woken up earlier than his brother. "There is one good thing about this."

"Oh really? And what's that?"

"You don't have to get water."

Gilbert snorted. "You've always been so good at seeing the good things in life, West," he said sarcastically.

"Someone has to."

"If you're any more positive, I'll hit you with my wet shirt." There was silence after that. "So, what do we do now?" Gil asked eventually.

"Wait for it to stop," Ludwig answered. "That's all we can do."

"I wonder how long it'll last..."

Sunrise, noon, and sunset passed without the rain easing its relentless downpour. The brothers took turns sleeping while the other one kept watch in hopes that the rain would stop, but it never did. Gilbert, who grew bored very quickly, amused himself at Ludwig's expense. He teased his younger brother, made up songs about him, recited poetry with his name placed in it at inappropriate times, and just plain whined to him.

"Weeeeeeesssst, I'm bored!"

"I'm aware."

"Say something funny."

"No."

"You're no fun at all!"

It went on for quite a while until Ludwig dug out some stale biscuits for dinner and shoved them in his older brother's mouth. That kept him occupied for about thirty seconds, and then it was back to square one. Ludwig thought he was going to lose his mind when Gilbert started into his poetry recital again.

"To Ludwig, or not to Ludwig!"

"Brother-"

"That is the question!"

"Brother-"

"Whether 'tis nobler in the Ludwig to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous Ludwig-"

"Brother!"

"Or to take up arms against a sea of Ludwig, and by opposing end them?"

"Brother!"

"To Ludwig, to Ludwig-"

"GILBERT!"

The elder Beilschmidt looked at Ludwig unhappily. "What? I was right in the middle of-"

"The rain stopped," Ludwig said without waiting for Gil to finish. For the first time since the two had awoken, there was silence. "We should go outside and check for damage."

"You do that. I'm too tired."

Ludwig had to use every bit of restraint he possessed to not punch his brother right then and there. The obnoxious buffoon had the energy to sing and recite Hamlet for the whole day, but not to walk outside once the rain stops. Ludwig was about to scold him when he realized the white haired man had fallen asleep. Relieved to be free of his noise, the younger brother slipped out of the tent without disturbing the sleeping man and stretched his aching limbs. Their tent was really too small for both of them to spend an entire day inside together.

Tiny, glimmering specks winked in the night sky, and there wasn't more than a few wisps of clouds left. The sudden shift in weather did not bode well for their climb. The weather could turn in the blink of an eye, but Ludwig didn't focus on that. He was happy just to be out of the cramped tent. Yellow lights in the distance marked the windows of different hotels and resorts of Kleine Scheidegg. He wondered what Lili did during the rain, and then immediately reprimanded himself for having such thoughts. It wasn't his concern what she had done, yet he couldn't help thinking about her.

Suddenly, a strange idea came to mind, and Ludwig almost laughed out loud. It was an impossible and completely crazy idea, but he was at the point of not caring. Tomorrow he would be attempting the most dangerous climb of his life. If he didn't do this now, he never would. With that reasoning in mind, he ducked into his tent long enough to grab a small package from his climbing pack and began walking toward the distant yellow lights. The path to the small village was slick with mud, but Ludwig's boots were meant for such surfaces. He wouldn't get very far up a mountain if his boots had poor traction.

It wasn't hard to find Lili and Vash's hotel in the dark. He remembered enough that he found his way there without having to turn around once. The door slammed behind him as he entered the dimly lit building, and he approached the front desk with meaningful strides. It was too late to back out now.

"I would like the room number for Miss Lili Zwingli," he said to the man behind the counter.

"I'm sorry, I can't give you that information unless you're a family member or a close relative," the man replied just as the phone rang. "Excuse me for a moment."

The receptionist turned his back to answer the phone. Ludwig took the opportunity to glance at the large guest book that was left open on the countertop. He quickly scanned through and found two rooms under the name Zwingli.

"Is there anything else I can help you-" The receptionist turned around once he had hung up the phone, but Ludwig was nowhere to be found.

He had made his way up the stairs and was looking for the room marked 16. Once he found it, he stood in front of it, silently preparing himself for what was going to happen. Ludwig knocked on the door as quietly as possible, and then waited. Nothing happened. He was about to knock again when the door clicked open a crack. A small face peered up at him through the opening. Then there was a gasp as the door was opened even further.

"L-Ludwig? What are you doing here?" Lili stepped into the doorway, and the light from the hall illuminated her face. She wore a simple white nightgown, and the ribbon that always adorned her hair was missing. It took Ludwig a moment to process everything, including what she said.

"Er, well...I just...here." He held out the package he had brought with him. "I wanted to give this to you."

"What is it?" she asked as she accepted the bundle. Her small hands worked quickly to get the cloth wrapping off the object. "Oh!" She held a small book up to the light and flipped through the first few pages. "Your climbing journal..."

"I want you to keep it safe for me."

"But Ludwig-"

"Keep your voice down," he said gently. "We wouldn't want your brother to hear us."

"But Ludwig," Lili said in a much softer voice, "I can't keep this."

"Yes, you can. I want you to have it."

Lili began to realize what he meant by giving the journal to her. "I don't want it. Not forever," she rephrased after seeing Ludwig's surprised face. "You'll come back and get it, right?"

His expression softened into one of understanding. "Of course," he said with a little difficulty.

"Promise?"

"I promise."

He turned to leave, but something caught hold of his sleeve. Lili watched anxiously as he faced her once more, her hand grasping his sleeve tightly. "Ludwig...I...I..."

She didn't know what to say. The words didn't come to her. Ludwig stepped closer, and then it didn't matter that she had nothing to say because her lips were otherwise occupied. The kiss was short and sweet. In length, it lasted but a moment, yet it communicated enough to last a lifetime. For that one brief instant, nothing mattered except the two whose hearts best in unison. The mountain, the climb, the people, the countries, the conflicts, it was all as meaningless as a speck of sand.

It was there and gone in a heartbeat. Lili got one last look at Ludwig's vibrant blue eyes before he was gone too. Not a word passed between them, but they didn't need any. She clutched the journal tightly to her chest as if doing so would hold his promise closer and keep it from breaking. Quietly, she slipped back into her room and closed the door with a blissful smile gracing her lips.


	9. Early Mornings to Make History

The Beilschmidts began climbing before the sky had become blue with morning light. They wanted a head start from the Austrians, who were trailing behind a long way down. Gilbert was refreshed and full of energy after sleeping well the night before, but Ludwig had to do his best to hide his fatigue. His night had not been nearly as peaceful. The two reached their secret stash of equipment with time to spare, and Gilbert went about uncovering the hidden bag.

"Hey, something's not right here, West," he said as he looked in the bag. "There's some stuff missing."

"Like what?"

"It looks like just the crampons."

A wave of relief washed over Ludwig. They could climb without crampons, but they would need their bivouac sacks if they were going to survive sleeping on the mountain. "We'll just have to cut footholds in the ice fields," he said.

"I bet it was those Austrians," Gilbert spat venomously. "They'd pull a dirty trick like this."

"There's a hole in the bag. They might have just fallen out," Ludwig pointed out. "Either way, we should get moving. We're wasting time."

Vash watched the climbers through a telescope set up on a deck outside of the resort. Many other tourists were gathered around watching through their own telescopes. From what he could see, the Austrian team was slowly gaining on the Germans. He mentally urged the brothers on, but he knew it did them no good. Fortunately, they continued their ascent without having lost too much ground. Excited chatter swept through the gathered crowd.

However, the Austrians managed to shorten the gap between the two teams over the few next hours. They were soon within shouting range, but the teams kept to themselves. Every fiber of their beings were focused on climbing, and they couldn't waste time or energy by shouting insults at each other, which was something Gilbert was very tempted to do. After several more hours and a short break for lunch, the gap was considerably smaller. Ludwig could see the tops of the Austrians' heads when he looked down. He was just about to tell his brother to hurry up, but Gilbert's foot slipped as the rock beneath it crumbled. The older brother was unharmed, but a cry of pain rose through the air from below.

"Are you rotten Germans trying to kill us?!" Roderich shouted indignantly. Blood dripped down his face from where the falling rock had struck his head.

"That's what you get for climbing right below us!" Gilbert shouted back. "Why don't you use your own route?"

There was some grumbling from the injured man, but no response otherwise. Elizabeta watched him carefully as he continued his climb. "That doesn't look so good. Maybe we should go back down."

"No! I'm not letting those uncultured brutes beat us to the top! Don't worry about me, just climb!" Roderich insisted, and Elizabeta did as she was told.

"One of the Austrians was just hit by some falling rocks," Vash told his sister. "Looks like he's bleeding."

"A-are Ludwig and Gilbert okay?" she asked, worried.

"Yes, yes. They're still ahead." Vash watched eagerly through the telescope with a smile on his face. "Those other teams that quit wouldn't have stood a chance. I couldn't have asked for a better story than this."

Lili wasn't sure he was talking to her anymore. She desperately wished she could get a peek through the telescope, but her brother had been glued to it ever since they arrived. Her stomach clenched nervously as murmurs of concern rose from the people watching the climb. "What is it? What's happening?"

"They're reached an impasse," Vash answered. "A vertical ascent is out of the question. What could they be thinking taking a route like that...?" He looked away long enough to notice Lili watching him intently. "I'm sure they're fine, but please don't forget why we're here. I haven't heard your camera click in a while."

She grudgingly raised the camera hanging around her neck and snapped a few photos of the people around her, but her heart wasn't in it. The only thing that mattered was Ludwig and Gilbert staying safe. She prayed that a guardian angel would keep watch over them.

"This weather's not going to last much longer," a dull voice said. Lili searched until she found the source. It was one of the three men from the rescue team she saw being interviewed as she arrived.

"Dude, you're going to jinx it if you say that," the energetic one said with a frown.

"But it's the truth, and I'm not going out there if those bloody climbers are dumb enough to get stuck in a storm."

"Mmm, maybe we should have more faith," the quiet one suggested. He pushed his slipping glasses back up his nose.

"Faith or not, this won't last forever."

Lili didn't have time to feel worried about what they were saying. The crowd was shouting excitedly and pointing toward the North Face. She made sure to get a few pictures before finding out what was going on. "What's happening?"

"History," Vash answered cryptically just as the Austrians caught up to the Beilschmidts.

"Hey, what the heck kind of a route is this?" Elizabeta called out. She and Roderich were watching the brothers closely. "Why would you climb up to a dead end?"

"Just watch and be amazed, kesesesese!" Gilbert exclaimed as he lowered himself down the rock face.

He abseiled a good five or six meters before coming to a stop. The wind playfully blew him back a bit as he dangled from a long rope. Ludwig had him anchored securely and nodded at his brother once before the shorter man began to run along the mountain. Gil didn't get anywhere close enough to the craggy outcropping he was swinging towards. He swung back and forth multiple times before he was able to find a secure handhold and latch on. A loud whoop sounded as Gilbert pumped his fist in the air.

Everyone watching from the resort cheered loudly at the completion of the traverse. "Dear sister, that was history being made!" Vash shouted. "Absolutely magnificent!"

Gilbert could hardly keep his hand steady as he hammered in a piton. The thrill of the traverse had him buzzing with excitement. He secured the rope as quickly as he could, and then motioned for Ludwig to begin crossing. The taller man was halfway across when the Austrians began inching their way along the rope too.

Gil swore loudly. "What are we going to do about them, West?" he asked his brother, who had just made it across.

"There's nothing we can do except wait for them to get across."

The elder Beilschmidt swore again. "I didn't do that so some amateur climbers like them could use it!"

"I know, brother. I know." Ludwig clapped his hand onto Gilbert's shoulder. "Maybe someday they'll name this traverse after you."

The older brother smirked, the Austrians forgotten. "I'd like that."

"I bet you would."

Just then, the other two climbers joined them on the rock shelf. "Better get a move on or you'll fall behind," Elizabeta said in a singsong voice as she passed them. Roderich stayed quiet.

Ludwig was about to keep going when Gilbert stopped him. "We should take the rope," he said as he pointed back at the traverse.

"What if we need it on the way down?"

"Then I'll just do it again. You never know if we'll need this rope later." Gil unhooked the rope and began reeling it back in. "Wouldn't want to regret not having it if we need it."

From there, the two climbed to the first ice field. They were still slightly behind the two Austrians, who were cutting out footholds in the frozen snow with their ice axes. Ludwig wished he had some crampons, but began cutting his own footholds without complaint. The same could not be said about his brother.

"Dang it, West! We would be past those idiots if we had our crampons. I still think they took 'em," Gil mumbled miserably.

"If they had taken them, why aren't thy wearing them?"

"I don't know! To make themselves look innocent? Don't ask me how their minds work," the elder brother said, oblivious to logic.

The rest of the climb was long and silent. Without crampons to give their boots traction on ice, both teams had to manually cut a path through the ice field. It was hard work, and both lead climbers showed signs of fatigue. Ludwig's breath formed great white puffs around his face, and he lowered a pair of goggles over his eyes to keep the wind from stinging them. Even with his hood up and a hat covering his head and ears, the cold bit into his skin with an unforgiving sharpness. He was glad there was not snowing as well.

Elizabeta led her team through the ice field, but they were beginning to lose their lead. She moved as fast as she could, but Roderich's movements were sluggish and uncoordinated. Minutes ticked by into hours, and the sun marked the passage of time with its inevitable descent. Despite Roderich's injury and lack of speed, the two pushed on through the windblown area until it was far behind them. Elizabeta only let herself feel relief once the sun set and they had to stop to bivouac. Her limbs were ready to give out, and she could only imagine how Roderich was feeling. He had collapsed in a heap as soon as they found a nook in the mountain face sheltered from the wind.

"Roderich. Hey, Roderich! You have to get your bivouac sack out before you fall asleep," Elizabeta reminded him, but he didn't move. "C'mon, let me help you." She moved his limp body so she could get at his pack.

"We're going to win," he murmured quietly enough that it could have been to himself. "We're going to be first and be famous."

"Sure we are. Here, get in your bag." Elizabeta helped him to crawl into his bivouac sack.

"We're going to be famous. We'll have everything we ever wanted. They'll have to respect us. They'll have to..."

"I know, Roderich," she said with a small laugh. "Let's get some sleep. We'll start again nice and early tomorrow."

"No more laughing at the Austrians...no more..."

"He doesn't look so good," Gilbert commented as he watched the two climbers from a distance. They were hard to see in the darkness, mostly due to the small dancing flame Ludwig had lit in a little portable burner. "Maybe they'll go back."

"Do you really think so?" Ludwig glanced up at his brother. Then he put a small pan of snow over the flame to melt into drinking water.

"No, probably not." Shadows flickered over the elder brother's face as the flame was covered. He took a bite out of some dried meat. "They didn't eat..." he observed.

"They're probably tired. The woman did most of the work, and the other one doesn't look right."

"Elizabeta. Her name is Elizabeta."

Ludwig smiled. "Have some feelings for her, brother?" He took a slow sip of ice cold water from the pan.

"N-no! It's not like that!" Gilbert said defensively. "I'm going to bed!"

He snuggled into his bivouac sack and pulled the hood over his head. Ludwig chuckled quietly to himself. Wind howled over the North Face, but it didn't reach the climbers. The air was clear, and Ludwig could see the faint twinkling lights of Kleine Scheidegg far, far below mirroring the lights in the obsidian heavens. Not a cloud could be seen. He hoped it would stay that way. He had a promise to keep.


	10. Lost Brothers

Both teams awoke the next morning to clear skies. A crisp breeze whistled through the cracks and crags of the North Face as bright rays of sunlight reflected off the packed snow. Ludwig lifted the hood of his bivouac sack and was rewarded with a shower of powdered snow. The wind must have blown a fine layer of the stuff over them as they slept. Gilbert also met the same fate as tried to exit his bag. A string of incoherent words followed by several curses filled the early morning air. The younger brother chuckled to himself as he rolled up his bag and watched Gil flounder on the ground in an attempt to get snow out of his clothes.

"You'll cause an avalanche doing that, brother," Ludwig said.

"But it's cold!" the elder brother whined, but his erratic movement stopped.

Once they had their things packed away, the two ate a quick breakfast of stale biscuits and jerky. Ludwig melted down enough snow for them to each take a few sips, and Gilbert took a quick bathroom break. He tried to act normal about relieving himself on the side of a mountain, but the experience always made him feel self-conscious. The elder Beilschmidt was just finishing up when he noticed the motionless forms of the Austrians on a not too distant cliff.

"Hey, what should we do about the others?" he asked as turned back toward the brothers' bivouac site.

"Who? The Austrians?"

"Yeah, they haven't woken up yet."

"Leave them. Gives us the upper hand."

Gilbert's expression tightened. "But what if they're...?"

Ludwig knew what his brother was trying to say. Many climbers have fallen asleep on a mountain to never wake again. "Then we'll come back for them on our way down."

"That's cold, West."

"There's nothing that can be done about it now."

The words were barely out of Ludwig's mouth when one of the Austrians moved. The thin layer of snow covering the moving person's bivouac sack fell to the ground, and Elizabeta Héderváry stepped out of her bag with a stretch. She caught sight of the brothers and gave them a cheeky wave before nudging her partner awake.

"There, nothing to worry about." Ludwig turned back to his supplies. "Pack your things so we can get started."

"Yeah, yeah." Gilbert let his eyes wander over the female climber for a moment longer. Finally, he pulled up his hood and helped his brother break camp.

"Hey. Roderich. Hey, get up!" Elizabeta poked the dark haired man with her foot repeatedly.

Unintelligible groans came from within the sack, but Roderich did not emerge.

"C'mon, lazybones! The Germans are going to get a leg up on us!"

He didn't bother to respond this time.

"Roderich?"

Elizabeta knelt down and carefully brushed the snow from his bag before pulling the hood back from his head. She had to hold back the gasp that threatened to come out at the sight before her. Dried blood caked one side of Roderich's face making it obvious where the blood had trailed down from his head. His violet eyes rolled around his head without being able to focus on anything, and a dark, ominous stain had appeared overnight on the hat he had worn to sleep.

Doing her best not the hurt him, Elizabeta gingerly peeled back the hat from his forehead. She couldn't contain her gasp this time. The wound Roderich had received from the falling rocks was much worse than he had let on. A deep gash had opened on his head and had turned a strange black color. Blood had matted his hair into the cut, which was only dry in a few parts, while pus and other fluids leaked out of different spots.

"Oh, Roderich," Elizabeta said in the faintest of whispers. "We have to go back down."

"No! We're...we're not going back!" the bleary eyed man insisted. His gaze finally focused on his partner's face. "We can't...no!"

"You need a doctor! You can't even go on like this!"

In the blink of an eye, faster than Elizabeta thought was possible in his condition, Roderich had her pinned on her back. "I'm not letting...those uncultured swines...beat us to the top! I. Will. Not. Lose!"

To her, there was as much crazy coming out of his mouth as there was spittle, but she didn't dare oppose him. "Okay, we'll keep going, but if you start to feel sick, we're going back down."

The crazed look left his eyes as he accepted her words. It took them a good ten minutes to pack up their things, eat a light breakfast, and begin their climb. By then the Beilschmidts had a comfortable lead. The brothers had already started to make their way across the second ice field when the Austrians arrived. Roderich hadn't said a word since the conversation earlier, and Elizabeta was worried. He couldn't continue for long with an injury like that. It was only a matter of time before something happened that would end their climb for good.

The second ice field took much longer than the first to cross. Both teams were tired, and to make matters worse, the ice was harder to cut than before. As the altitude increased, the temperature decreased, which meant the ice was much more frozen here than below. Ludwig found himself stopping to catch his breath more often than the day before, and Elizabeta felt as if she were dragging a dead body behind her. She turned around occasionally to confirm that that was not actually the case. It was hard to see Roderich's face with his hood up, but he was very much alive.

Vash also noticed the climbers' difficulty through the telescope he had all but claimed as his own. "The Austrian team appears to be struggling," he said to Lili. He focused the lens on the straggling climbers and watched for a moment in silence. "There's definitely something wrong with one of them. It's the male. What was his name? Richard? Rodney?"

"Roderich," Lili clarified. She worried for the dark haired man, but her heart thought of another. "How are the brothers?"

"Doing quite well actually. They are currently in the lead and making good progress. I'd say that they'll probably reach the top the day after tomorrow if they continue at this pace."

"The day after tomorrow!" Lili gasped. She knew the trip would not be short, but bivouacking twice more before even making it to the top was quite dangerous.

"Do not fret, dear sister. They have the support of the German nation at their backs."

Vash's words did little to soothe her. She clasped her hands together tightly and stared at the formidable North Face. The words of a short, but sincere prayer formed on her lips. She thought about the climbers and the awful challenges they've faced, and would still have to face. Mostly, she thought of Ludwig. She prayed that he would come back safe in one whole, warm piece.

As Lili's prayer ascended to heaven, Ludwig's ice axe descended on something embedded within the ice. He pried the adze free and brushed some loose snow out of the way. A corner of something red and definitely manmade peeked out of the ice. Ludwig used his gloved hands to pry away at the cracked ice and dig a little deeper. What he saw made his blood run cold.

"Brother, you should see this."

"Can't you just tell me what it is? You've been standing there for too long. Let's keep going."

"No, you need to see this."

With an irritated sigh, Gilbert began cutting his own footholds to join his brother. He paused on occasion to pull out a crampon. A snide comment was about to fly from his mouth, but when he saw what Ludwig had found it caught in his throat.

"Is that...what I think it is?"

"Yes. One of the Bavarian climbers. They never did find the bodies."

"Just our luck, eh West?" Gil jested, but there was no smile on either of their faces.

The two wordlessly got to work freeing the body from its icy tomb. It wasn't long until they uncovered the second body as well. Both brothers had understood the risk in what they were attempting to do, but the reality had not sunken in until this moment. Until they saw the fate of those who tried what they were doing, the possibility of their fate being quite similar had seemed rather absurd.

"Hey...what...are you two...doing?" asked a breathless voice. It had been quiet for so long that the Beilschmidts had forgotten about the Austrian team. Elizabeta panted behind the two and watched as they continued to uncover what appeared to be two bodies. A sudden realization came to her. "Those are...your fellow Bavarians...aren't they?"

"Yeah," Gilbert answered in a low voice. He hadn't bothered to look at her.

She watched for another minute before moving closer. "Let me help."

The brothers made room for the woman, and the three spent the next hour painstakingly chipping away at the ice encasing the climbers. Roderich remained motionless on the snow beneath them and dripped blood onto the blanketing of white. His wound had reopened some time during the climb, but no one had noticed. At long last, the Bavarians were freed and bundled into their bivouac sacks. With a few final words of a prayer from Ludwig, the men were released down the mountain face. The three watched until the bodies were out of sight, buried in the rocks they so desperately wanted to conquer.

"We should climb together from now on," Ludwig said to the tired woman. She had finally controlled her breathing, but fatigue showed very clearly on her red, wind burned face. "There is strength in numbers."

"I agree," she said softly.

But in reality, the two groups joined to avoid ending up like their fellow climbers. The truth was hard to overlook when it caught them straight in the face. If they had any chance of getting to the top, it was through a combined effort.

"Let's keep moving," Ludwig suggested. "The weather doesn't look like it'll hold for long." He watched dark clouds begin to gather in the sky and block out the sun. Dark clouds also began to gather in his heart, and he didn't like the feeling at all.


	11. Descent

The four now climbed as a single unit with one long rope securing them to each other. Ludwig was still in the lead, Gilbert was behind him, and Roderich between Gil and Elizabeta bringing up the rear. The dark haired Austrian hadn't said much about the unexpected alliance, but he hadn't said much of anything at all in the last several hours. They climbed in silence, but the wind had progressively picked up speed as the minutes ticked by. It howled and wailed across the mountain face as the climbers slowly made their way higher, with slowly being the operative word. They made progress at the same steady pace a turtle or a snail would as it pulls itself across the ground.

Ludwig squinted through his goggles to find his next handhold as snow suddenly began to swirl through the air. It stung his face as it whipped past, and he wished he had some kind of face mask. He quickly tossed that idea when he remembered why he hadn't bothered to pack one in the first place. With the temperature being so low, the moisture from his breath would have frozen a mask or scarf to his face in a matter of minutes. It was better to feel the stinging needles of snow than get extreme frostbite, however much his raw face protested.

He looked down to see the progress being made by the others. Gilbert seemed like he could keep going for a while if asked to, but the Austrians were a different story. They both looked as if they were about to fall of the mountain at any moment. Roderich moved his arms and legs automatically, but his head lolled around like his neck was made of putty. Elizabeta looked more alert. She watched her partner carefully to make sure he didn't slip, but her own limbs shook unsteadily as she reached for handholds. Ludwig was about to say something to Gil about it when her foot slipped out of its hold.

She fell at least ten meters before the rope caught her. Ludwig and Gilbert braced themselves the best they could as the rope went taut. Luckily, Elizabeta was unhurt, but the same could not be said for Roderich. He had been pulled from the mountain face and had also dropped a few meters. His fall was halted by an outcropping of rock, and a loud snap came from his leg as it was crushed under his weight. The sound of his leg breaking was ripped away by the wind, but the shrieks and wails that issued from his mouth could heard by the others clear as day.

Elizabeta worked to climb back up the rope using a smaller rope as a foothold, and with each jostle came another cry from her partner. He couldn't get off his leg or move it from underneath himself. All he could do was wait in agony for Elizabeta to recover from her fall. She finally arrived at the same cliff he was lying on, which gave the Beilschmidts the opportunity to climb down and meet them. They were met with a rather grisly sight. Roderich's leg looked as if it had exploded from the inside out. Sharp, broken bones protruded from his skin, and blood ran hot and red down his pale leg. He groaned as Elizabeta rolled the leg of his trousers higher away from the blood. It was the worst compound fracture Ludwig had ever seen.

"We have to go back," she said. They almost didn't catch her words over the roaring wind.

"No! We have...to win..."

"Will you shut up?! Look at yourself!" she cried at Roderich. "You're a mess! There's no way you're going to make it to the top like this! I don't even know if you can make it back down!"

"Crap, this is bad, West." Gilbert looked to his brother for advice. "What do we do?"

"We have to go back. There's no other choice."

"No, you don't." Elizabeta wiped a few tears from her eyes before they could freeze. "You two keep going. I'll take him back."

"How are you going to climb down by yourself?" Ludwig asked incredulously. "It's hard enough as it is, but to do it in this weather. That's suicide."

"I can do it! I know it!"

"Let her try, West." Gilbert met his brother's gaze with his own. "She can make it back, and we'll keep going. We can still make it if we try."

Ludwig narrowed his eyes in disgust. "You would let her throw her life away so we can win some silly contest? I thought you were better than that."

The elder Beilschmidt closed his red eyes in frustration and shouted profanities into the wind. "It's not fair! We've already made it so far!" He stomped his foot like an angry child. "Dang it, West! Screw you and your stupid morals!"

The three uninjured climbers went about trying to reset Roderich's leg. He had already passed out from the pain, which made their job a lot easier. Ludwig tied a tight tourniquet above the break to try to staunch the flow of blood, but most of what had already come out was dried or frozen. They carefully bundled the Austrian in his bivouac sack and tied him to the end of their safety rope. Gilbert was ready to start climbing back down, but his brother stopped him.

"Let's get some sleep," he suggested. "We've been through enough as it is."

The three who were still conscious huddled together in their bivouac sacks in a feeble attempt to stay warm. Their sudden turn of events had left them open to the wind's relentless howling, and none of them could fall asleep quickly. Ludwig would have taken the unnerving silence from earlier in the climb over the constant rushing of the wind. It was enough to drive a person mad.

The weather was no better the next morning, and Lili feared for the safety of her friends. She and Vash had gone inside immediately when the wind started, and that was several hours before the snow. It was a very strange feeling to know it was the middle of July yet there was a snowstorm raging outside. She took a trembling sip of tea, and then tried to focus on anything other than the possibility that her friends were dead. Even the awful shrieking of the wind outside was better than the thoughts that constantly plagued her mind.

"This is no good," Vash mumbled as he entered the lobby. He sat down in a plush chair across the table from his sister. "If the weather continues on like this, we might as well leave."

"W-what?" Lili set down her teacup before her shaking hands could spill hot tea everywhere. "Why do we have to leave?"

Her brother sighed and crossed his arms. "Those teams would have to be crazy to stay out in a storm like this. I'd bet money that they're already on their way back down, and that's why it's not worth staying. People want to read about triumph or tragedy, not retreat. No, it's better that we leave now with our dignity still intact." The two sat quietly as the wind continued to rage outside. A particularly violent gust shook the shutters that covered the lobby's windows. Vash looked toward them thoughtfully. "Perhaps…it would be in our interest to stay," he said in a low, contemplative voice.

Lili could see the gears turning in her brother's head and hated him for it. He was determined to leave just a moment ago when he thought there was no chance at a good story. Now that he was convinced that he could get one, he would do everything in his power to make it the best story he could by whatever means possible. He would make the climbers out to be heroes, the pride of the people and the Party. He would use touching narratives and patriotic diction to capture the heart of his audience. He would have his golden story, but it would be no triumph.

"I'll be in my room," she whispered.

She stood up and left without taking her tea with her. But Vash didn't notice her hasty exit. The gears in his head droned out the sound of her soft voice.

As the day progressed, the weather somehow managed to become worse than before. Snow came down in needle-like flurries that Ludwig could feel hitting his back, arms, and legs. Sometimes he would turn his head to get a better view of what was below and be met with a barrage of stings. His coat and three layers of clothes underneath did nothing to keep the icy wind from cutting straight through him and chilling him to the bone. He had never felt so cold in his life, and hoped to never feel so cold again. It was so bad that his teeth didn't even chatter. His face was so stiff that it was hard to form his lips into words, let alone speak them.

He occasionally shouted down to Gilbert, who was having just as miserable of a time as his younger brother. His hands were so numb that he couldn't feel them as he lowered himself down the mountain. The going was excruciatingly slow, but there wasn't a thing any of them could do about it. Roderich had been quiet since they had awoken that morning and was the main reason for their retarded pace. He dangled at the bottom of their rope, unaware of his surroundings and a hindrance to his companions.

They had to stop occasionally to make sure he was still breathing, and it was on one such occasion that Ludwig lost a glove. He was helping the other two to carefully lower Roderich into a flat rock shelf when it happened. The combination of the wind and the bits of ice that formed between the glove and rope had been enough to pull the vital piece of clothing off Ludwig's hand and into the swirling snow. He watched it flutter and fall into the dark void that lay below him. Then the cold set in. It was like having his hand dipped into ice water. The sudden temperature difference made his fingers curl up into a tight fist in an attempt to keep warm. Ludwig held his hand close to his chest to keep it out of the wind, but didn't falter in his efforts to lower Roderich safely.

The younger Beilschmidt joined the others on the ledge after pulling the last piton out of the rocks. He did his best to keep his hand hidden in his sleeve, out of view and out of the wind. No one spoke as bivouac sacks were removed from their packs. Their words would have been lost to the wind anyway. They all pulled the hoods of their bags over their heads and waited. None of them dared to fall asleep in such cold conditions.

"Roderich. Roderich, you have to stay awake. You'll freeze." Elizabeta bumped her partner until she felt him move. Somewhat reassured, she settled down into her sack and did her best to conserve heat. No one got any sleep that night.


	12. Contact

Lili tossed and turned in her bed restlessly as the storm continued its eternal howling. Her mind was so engrossed with one, singular thought that she could not allow herself to relax. With resolution, she sat up and slid out of bed. The winter boots that she had thoughtfully packed stood next to an empty chair, and she quickly slipped them on. She wrapped two scarves around her neck and buttoned up her coat with trembling hands before sliding them into a pair of thick woolen mittens. Lili snuck across her room quietly and slipped out the door.

She found it hard to keep track of time once she got into the train tunnel. It could have been minutes or hours since she left the resort. In her rush to leave, Lili hadn't brought any kind of light with her, so she kept one gloved hand on the tunnel wall as she walked. The sound of the storm had diminished greatly, but even the kilos of rock surrounding her could not completely shut out the noise. It haunted her as she trudged along. Somewhere in that storm, Ludwig was fighting for his life.

After perhaps an hour, Lili's hand came across an empty space. She paused and took a good look around. Even in the gloom, she could make out the hut that was built by the gallery window. She took hurried steps toward the opening in the mountain with a mixture of fear and excitement gripping her heart. As soon as she stepped out onto the observation deck, the wind tore at her hair and clothes. Her breath was pulled from her lungs by the sudden chill, and she had to fight the urge to curl up into a protective ball. She had never experienced anything like the power and pure rage of this storm.

"Ludwig!" she shrieked into the wind. It was impossible to tell if he was even close enough to hear, but she tried anyway. "Ludwig! Gilbert! Ludwiiiiig!"

Lili stopped to listen. All she heard was the roar of the wind. She was about to try again when a hand grasped her shoulder. "Are you crazy?! What are you doing out in this storm?!"

"Antonio!" she gasped in surprise when she turned around. "I'm looking for Ludwig and Gilbert!"

"There's no way they'll hear you from here!" he shouted over the wind. "The last I heard, they were closer to window 38!"

Lili grasped the front of his jacket. "Where is that?! Will you take me?!"

His expression made it clear that he didn't want to do as she asked, but the look of desperation in Lili's green eyes was enough to change his mind. "Follow me, and stay close!"

Antonio led her away from the window and back toward his hut. He picked up a lantern by the door that he must have placed there earlier. With a gesture to follow, he began to walk further into the train tunnel. The two moved slowly in silence. Antonio checked the number of every door in the tunnel they passed, and Lili clutched her hands together tightly. She wanted to scream at the young man to hurry, her friends' lives were at risk, but she knew that she should be thankful for the help he had offered.

At last, he stopped at a wooden door that was only large enough for one person to enter at a time. "Window 38," he said. He pulled the door open and smiled at her. "You go first. I'll follow."

Lili stepped inside the narrow doorway and immediately ducked. There were beams crisscrossing all across the top of the tunnel, and a few even came down the sides. She took a deep breath to steady herself before carefully making her way through the tight space. Normally, she would balk from a situation like this, but this wasn't a normal circumstance. She had to do this for the sake of her friends, and her conscious.

The wind grew louder the closer she got to the tunnel, and she felt a cold draft before she saw the muted light of the outside world. She gripped the sides of the window, which was hardly big enough for a person carrying a pack to slip through. "Ludwig!" she called as loudly as she possibly could. "Ludwig! Gilbert! Can you hear me?!"

Then she waited. Straining her ears, she listened for any sound that could indicate the condition of the climbers. She was about to try again when she heard it. "Lili!" came the faint voice. "Lili!"

"It's Ludwig!" she told Antonio excitedly.

"Lili! We hear ya, pipsqueak!"

"And that's Gilbert!" Relief flooded every part of her. They were still alive.

"We're climbing down to you! Just wait for us!"

"They're coming!" she said breathlessly. Lili felt like laughing, singing, and crying all at the same time.

"That's great!" Antonio replied. He was happy to see the troubled expression leave her face. "They won't be here for a few hours yet. Let's go back to my place and warm up. We can come back later."

Lili didn't want to leave the window, but she knew he was right. There was no point in her waiting and freezing to death. She followed Antonio out the narrow tunnel and back to his hut. He opened the door for her, and she was surprised by what she saw inside. It was much cozier than she imagined from the appearance of the exterior. She sat in a worn wicker chair by a wood stove while Antonio set a kettle to boil.

"Do you know the story behind the names of the mountains?" he asked in an attempt to distract her.

"Um…what?"

"The Mönch, Jungfrau, and Eiger. There's a story that says there was once a fair maiden, a Jungfrau, that was kidnapped by an ogre, or Eiger. She was finally rescued by a brave monk."

"The Mönch," Lili said softly as she realized the connection.

"Yup! And some people say that the ogre still lives on the mountain and eats people that get too close." The words had come out before Antonio could realize his mistake. He was trying to take her mind off the situation, not worry her more. "I-I mean it's just a story. There's no ogre."

"I know," she replied in her quiet voice. "It was a lovely story."

There was a moment of silence before the kettle started to whistle shrilly. Antonio took it off the stove and busied himself making tea. He handed Lili a steaming cup, which she graciously accepted. A small smile turned up the corners of her lips, but she wasn't smiling on the inside. She didn't want to make Antonio worry, so she talked with him pleasantly. If she was being truthful, his story had bothered her more than she let on.

"H-how m-m-much further?"

Elizabeta's trembling voice barely registered to Ludwig. She had abseiled within an arm length of the tall blonde, but he had trouble hearing her. Her green eyes were full of terror and pleaded for comfort. It was unnerving to see her like this after she had been so strong for the longest time. The lack of sleep and intense cold must have finally gotten to her.

"It shouldn't be long now!" Ludwig told her, but she didn't seem to hear.

Stray bits of her hair that had escaped from her hat and hood swirled around her face adding to her look of insanity. She started to nod slowly, and her eyes wandered away from Ludwig. "I c-can't feel m-my arm."

He read her blue lips more than he heard her words. A feeling of dread crept into his chest, and he stole a quick glance at her arms. "I'm sure it'll be fine once you soak in the tub for a while! Won't that be nice?!"

"Y-yeah...yeah. You're r-right."

But Ludwig knew he wasn't. Elizabeta's left arm appeared to be working just fine. She had her hand wrapped tightly around the rope that she was using to rappel. Her right arm was not doing as well. Sometime between breaking camp and now, she had lost her glove, which reminded Ludwig in a not so subtle way of his own missing glove. The hand that poked out of her sleeve had turned an awful, unnatural shade of purple and black. As she turned to continue abseiling, her bad arm hit the frozen mountain face. Ludwig couldn't hear it, but he was sure it made a dull clank, like ice on ice. No number of hot baths would ever save that arm. He unconsciously clasped and unclasped his bare hand to keep the blood flowing.

It had already been a long time since they heard Lili's voice calling through the wind. He really hoped that's she wasn't waiting in the cold for them. Such a small girl like her wouldn't last extended exposure to the cold. Ludwig kept his mind occupied with thoughts of her so to keep from thinking about the cold. About the dull throbbing in his gloveless hand. About the odds they were so desperately fighting against. He almost didn't realize the rest of his group had stopped until he nearly pushed the bundled up Roderich off the ledge he was sitting on.

"What's going on?!" the younger brother shouted.

"We're at the traverse!" Gilbert answered as he groped along the rock face for something. "Just give me a moment and I'll find the..." He let the wind tear his words away as his hand wrapped around an empty piton and carabiner.


	13. Brotherly Duty

"He pulled out the rope!" Roderich wailed. He was finally somewhat lucid and screamed out in despair. "He pulled out the rope!"

"Shut up! Shut up!" His partner pounded on his chest with her good hand. "This is all your fault! If we had just gone back down, this never would have happened! Stupid, Roderich! Stupid, stupid, stupid!"

"Hey! There's no point in blaming each other!" Ludwig said as he pulled Elizabeta off the injured man, who slipped back into a hazy stupor. The blonde man shot his brother a look.

"I did it once! I can do it again!" Gilbert concluded. He began to hook himself into the carabiner and abseiled down while Ludwig acted as his sole anchor. Elizabeta was too preoccupied with weeping, and Roderich was at this point as useful as a rock.

The elder brother slowed his descent and got a good grip on the North Face. He lowered his goggles over his eyes. The first swing hardly got him anywhere. It was difficult for his feet to get any traction on the frozen traverse, and the wind flung him back as if he were a rag-doll. Undeterred, Gilbert used his backwards motion for momentum and swung again. And again. And again. And again and again. Each time he would get close to a handhold, but he could never keep his grip. The combination of his momentum and the forceful wind prevented him from completing the traverse.

"One more time!" Elizabeta shrieked. "You have to try again!"

And so Gilbert did. He swung until his breaths came in quick, sharp puffs. Snow occasionally fell down the near vertical traverse and landed on him as he tried desperately to stay on the other side. Ludwig watched his brother force himself to swing over and over, and knew the white haired man's strength had reached its end. After his hand slipped for the last time, Gilbert let his momentum run out and hung limply from the end of the rope.

His words were lost to the wind, but Ludwig read them on his lips. "I can't."

"We have to go straight down!" the younger brother told Elizabeta.

The woman had finally stopped crying and looked at him with wide eyes. "We don't have enough rope for that!" she exclaimed.

"We don't have any other choice!"

"Make him try again! Make him try again!" She seems to be on the verge of more tears.

"It's not going to work! Going straight down is our only option!"

Elizabeta nodded weakly, as if her body understood but her mind was long gone. She helped him lower Roderich, and Ludwig removed the traverse piton once he knew his brother was secure on the mountain. Then the most challenging climb yet had begun. Most people avoided the route they were taking because hand and footholds were far and few between. Piton needed to be hammered in every few meters, and long stretches of rope were required to abseil down from safe vantage points. It was by no means the ideal route.

Ludwig stayed toward the top of the group to help lower the delirious Roderich down to the others. Even with his missing glove, he had more strength and energy left than the other two competent climbers. The lack of sleep and water was starting to show on everyone's faces and in their performance, but they didn't dare stop. They didn't even bother to eat since no one felt hungry anyway. There wasn't a minute to spare on trivial things like food and water. If they stopped moving, they might not be able to start again. That was the nature of the beast before them on the frostbitten Eiger Mountain.

Lili watched each minute tick by on a small clock Antonio kept by his bed. It had been a long time since she had talked to Ludwig and Gilbert. Almost too long. She felt herself growing impatient. Antonio was keeping himself occupied by reading a book, but Lili knew she was too nervous for an activity like that. She had to do something before she went insane.

"I'm going back out," she announced as she stood.

Antonio looked up from his book with surprise. "Are you sure? I'm sure they'll be here any-" But she was already out the door.

Lili hurried toward the train tunnel as fast as her stiff, shaking legs could carry her. She realized too late that she should have brought a lantern or something with her from the hut. It was impossible to see anything more than a few centimeters from her face. She suddenly felt very nervous in the dark. Her pace slowed to a halt, and she waited for her breathing to return to normal. She could always just go back. With that thought in mind, she was about to turn around when the smallest pinprick of light appeared further down the tunnel.

"Lili? Is that you?"

She gasped. "B-brother? What are you d-doing here?"

As if materializing from the darkness, Vash's form became suddenly very clear. He had a bulky electric light in his hand, and he hurried to reach his sister. "We found your room empty this morning. They formed a search party, but didn't get far in the storm. I was the only one who thought to come out here. Good thing too." His eyes flickered down to the hem of her nightgown that stuck out past her coat. "Come back to the resort and change into some real clothes. It's nearly noon."

Lili was about to follow him when she caught a glimpse of a ghost of a smile on his lips and a sly gleam in his eye, like a fox about to raid a chicken coop. It was in that instant that she realized the truth. She recognized that look on his face. The gears in his head clicked and whirred so loudly that she was surprised she hadn't heard them before.

"No."

Vash stopped and turned around with a quizzical expression. "What?"

"No, I'm not going back."

"Please don't be silly. I know you're worried about your friends, but there's no reason for you to-"

"You came here for a story, didn't you?"

The question hung in the air like a china dish about to crash. And crash it did.

"Lili, I-"

"You don't care about Ludwig or Gilbert or even me! You just want a story!"

Her brother's face hardened. "I'm a journalist. That's what we do."

"Then I quit." The words coming out of her mouth startled even Lili, but she didn't stop. "If that's what being a journalist is, I don't want to be a part of it."

"Lili-"

"Leave me alone!" Tears had begun to trail down her cheeks. "Just go away!" She turned away buried her face in her hands.

Vash's usual frown deepened. This was not how he imagined this was going to play out. He didn't know how to fix it. "Lili. Lili, please. I'm sorry." She didn't budge. "Tell me how to make it up to you. Please."

"Get them off this mountain."

It was so faint that he wasn't sure he heard it. "What?"

"Get them off this mountain." His sister faced him, and there was a fire in her gentle eyes he had never seen before. "Save my friends."

Vash swallowed. "I'll see what I can do."

Outside, the storm continued its brutal onslaught of the North Face. Any and all available nooks and cracks filled with snow and ice. Loose bits of the stuff would sometimes rain down on the weary climbers as they made slow progress down the mountain. They reached a particularly difficult section to climb and ended up having to creep across horizontally until they could find a better spot to rappel from. Ludwig watched his tired group as they tried to pass across a narrow gully. It was hard to tell them apart because of the strange, dark hue their faces had turned, but he knew that Elizabeta was holding the rear while Gilbert tried to cross the gully.

His pace was slow, and it made Ludwig nervous. The amount of snow and ice that dropped down on them increased as time went on. There was only so much that could accumulate before it became too much for the rocks to hold. He silently willed his brother to move faster. Gilbert crawled his way toward the blonde man as fast as his limbs would allow. He never really recovered from the failed attempt to traverse. Occasionally, he would glance down at Roderich, who hung between him and Ludwig, to make sure he wasn't swinging into any rocks or anything. It had been a while since the dark haired man had moved or groaned.

"Brother, get out of the gully!" Ludwig cried suddenly. Gilbert looked up to see a large amount of snow falling right for him. There was sure to be more to follow. "Hurry! You have to move!"

But try as he might, the elder Beilschmidt couldn't dodge the cascade of frost. The impact was cold and sudden, but he was able to keep his hold on the mountain face. That did not last for long, however. His hands gave out, and he plummeted several meters until the rope caught him. Elizabeta was not anticipating the harsh jerk on the safety line and was lifted off her feet as the rope slid wildly through a crampon near her head. The rope connecting her to Gilbert broke under the weight of the snow, but it was already too late. There was a loud crack as her head connected with the side of the mountain, and then she was still.

"Brother!" Ludwig shouted. "Are you alright?!"

"Yeah! I'll climb back up in a minute!" Gilbert managed to locate a smaller rope and slowly fashioned a foothold he could use. He began to make his way up the rope at a snail's pace.

Then Ludwig heard something that made his heart stop. A slight ping by his waist that indicated a piton was coming loose. He quickly grabbed the rope supporting his brother and Roderich with both hands, but the piton continued to slide loose.

"Faster! You have to climb faster!"

Gilbert didn't respond. He was too busy staring at Roderich's frozen face. There was no way to know when he had died, but it had been long enough for his entire body to turn into ice.

"Climb, brother! You have to climb!"

Ludwig fumbled for his ice pick with one hand leaving the bare one to hold the rope. He tried to hammer the loose crampon back into the rock, but there was no stopping the inevitable. It was going to come out. If not now, then later. But it didn't stop the younger brother from trying. He grasped the rope with his gloveless hand even as he felt it grow slick with blood. Desperation fueled his every move. Every swing. Every pained word.

"Hurry! The piton is coming out!"

His words did nothing to speed Gilbert's progress. The usually obnoxious man's gaze switched between his panicked brother and the dead man hanging before him. It was strange, but he had never felt more at peace before in his life. His hand strayed to his waist where he usually kept a small knife.

"Brother, please! What are you waiting for?!"

Gilbert didn't hear any of it. The wind, the shouts, the blood pounding in his ears. He was deaf to it all. He knew what he had to do. If the piton fell, there was no way Ludwig could hold them. He knew what he had to do, and that was that. The knife slid out of its little sheath without difficulty. With a steady hand, he placed the sharp blade against the rope keeping him from falling to certain doom.

Ludwig's mouth formed the words he wanted to scream, but nothing came out.

"You make sure you get down, West. Tell Lili...tell her I'm sorry."

The knife cut through the rope like butter, and nothing Ludwig shouted could stop it. Time seemed to slow until it felt like it was hardly moving at all. Gilbert wore a small smile as he and Roderich fell out of sight, the piton following closely behind.


	14. Last Words

No words came out. Ludwig opened his mouth, but nothing came. No tears, no words. The world came to a screeching halt.

"Gilbert?"

The storm raged on.

"Gilbert?"

Snow swirled through the air.

"Gilbert!"

The words were coming faster now.

"Gilbert! Gilbert!"

His shouting became laced with a healthy amount of swearing.

"How could you, brother?! Gilbeeerrrrt!"

Then he had nothing left to say. He just shook with ragged sobs as the wind howled on indifferently. An uncontrollable shivering came over him, and his hands clutched the only piton still hammered into the mountain. His breaths came in raspy, pained gasps until he finally calmed down, but the anguish of his brother's death still wracked his insides with guilt. He should have been able to save his brother. It was all his fault.

"Eliza...Elizabeta," Ludwig called out in a weak voice. All of his previous strength had disappeared along with Gilbert. "Elizabeta, I need the extra rope. I need to...change this rope. It's broken and..."

His voice faded into the roar of the wind as he realized she wasn't responding. It was hard to see her on the other side of the gully, but what he did see caused his whole body to go numb. Elizabeta lay against the North Face in a very unnatural way. Her face looked away from Ludwig, and she had slumped down on her knees. A dark trail of what could only be blood stained the snow that accumulated against the rock wall. Another pool of the liquid was forming around her head. It was already starting to freeze. With shaking hands he reached into his pack to pull out his bivouac sack. If he couldn't escape the truth, he might as well try hiding from it. However, as he was unrolling the bag, a strong gust of wind wrenched it from his shaking hands, and it disappeared into the storm.

The awful truth hit Ludwig in the chest with the force of a train. He was alone. In a matter of minutes, he went from being in a four-man team to being the lone survivor of an expedition gone wrong. A horrible fear seized his heart and sapped most of his remaining strength. He was going to die on this mountain. With no rope, no water, and no way to stay warm, he was already as good as dead.

"They're as good as dead," one of the men said with such finality that Lili could almost hear the funeral bells ringing in the distance.

Vash had led her back to the resort and barged into a private dining room despite the multiple people that had protested their advance. It turned out that the mountain rescue team was eating an early dinner when the siblings walked in unannounced. They didn't seem pleased by the interruption, but they didn't send them away either. Lili wondered if Vash would have allowed them to kick him out.

"Please, you have to try," she urged.

The quiet rescuer looked to the others. "It wouldn't hurt to try..."

"Dude, I am not going out in this weather," the energetic one replied.

"Why does it matter so much to you anyway?" the cynical one said as he went back to his food.

Lili found herself at a crossroad. She could continue arguing with the men, or she could give them a reason that they couldn't say no to. It would be embarrassing to say in front of her brother, but there was no other way.

"Ludwig is...he's...we're...together."

All three of the rescuers paused to stare at her, and she felt her face flush. "You guys...we have to help," the quiet one insisted.

"Mattie's right," agreed the energetic one with a sigh. "We gotta at least try."

"It's not worth dying for." The cynic's extremely large eyebrows furrowed together as he narrowed his eyes.

"Where's all that chivalry you're always talking about, Arthur? We can't let this poor lady down."

The cynic, who was apparently named Arthur, looked back and forth between his two teammates and finally gave a sigh of defeat. "Fine, Alfred. You win, but if we die I'm holding you personally responsible."

"Thank you," Lili whispered. She was so overcome by relief that she was afraid she'd cry if she tried to talk any louder.

The one named Alfred raised his fork. "Last one done eating has to carry all the ropes!"

"Just shut up and eat, you annoying git!"

Lili insisted on following the rescue team all the way to window 38 against Vash's pleas to stay at the resort. The wind was still as strong as ever, and the men had difficulty climbing out of the gallery window and onto the mountain. Snow shifted beneath their boots and threatened to cause them to slide off the North Face. They braced themselves against the wind and slowly shuffled away from the window. There was no way they could know where the teams were, so they had to shout for them.

"Ludwig! Gilbert!"

"Elizabeta! Roderich!"

"Ludwig!"

Somewhere in the snow, the tall blonde man stirred. He thought he heard someone calling his name in the wind. "H-hello?!"

"That's him!" Lili gasped from the window. "Ludwig! Ludwig, we hear you!"

He recognized her voice. "Lili?! Lili!"

"Where are the others?!" Alfred shouted.

"D-dead! Three dead! I'm t-the only one left!"

A grim silence came over the rescue group. "Can you get down?!" Arthur eventually yelled.

"N-no! I'm stuck! You'll have t-to come and get me!"

"There's no way we can get up there in this weather!" the quiet one, Matthew, said to the others. "Tell him we'll have to come back!"

"We can't climb in this weather! We'll come back in the morning!" Alfred shouted.

"No! Don't leave me! You have to come and get me!"

"We'll try again tomorrow," Arthur told Lili as he squeezed back into the narrow window tunnel. The three men began their walk back through the train tunnel leaving Lili alone to hear Ludwig's pained cried.

"I don't want to die! You can't leave me! You have to help me! I don't want to die!"

"Oh Ludwig." Lili said softly. She carefully crawled out of the window and onto the frozen mountain face. The wind pulled on her clothes and hair mercilessly, but she didn't give up. Ludwig finally stopped screaming at the same time she found a small nook to settle into. "I won't leave you, Ludwig. I promise. I won't leave you." She lowered her head into her arms to protect her face from the wind and waited.

The first thing she noticed as she woke was that the wind had stopped. Sometime during the night, the storm had finally blown itself out leaving the North Face with a fresh new blanket of white. Lili brushed off the fine layer of snow that had settled over her and stood on stiff legs. She was surprised to find that all of her limbs and appendages were in normal working condition. Vash would be furious when he discovered that she had spent the night on the mountain, but she couldn't find it within herself to care. She was the one who had cared enough about Ludwig to even try, unlike her brother and the rescue team.

With the wind and snow gone, she could clearly see Ludwig's unmoving form high above her on a small rock ledge. Somehow he had spent the night huddled against the mountain with no protection other than the clothes on his back. Lili had at least been in a place where the cold wasn't as severe, but he wasn't as lucky. She watched him with concern as the sun rose higher into the sky. He didn't move.

"Hello! Anyone home?" Alfred's head appeared from the gallery window. "Wow, you sure get up early." He stepped out onto the mountain face, and his companions followed closely behind.

"How long have you been out here?" Arthur asked.

"A-all night," she answered.

"All night?!" The three exchanged shocked looks.

"I wish I had a guardian angel like you," Matthew said wistfully. His breath made the curl in front of his face bob. "That Ludwig is one lucky guy."

"Speaking of which…" Arthur stepped forward and cupped his hands over his mouth. "Ludwig! Ludwig, are you okay?!"

There was a long pause. Lili feared that her worst nightmare had become a reality. After a few more excruciating minutes, Ludwig stirred. It was just his arm at first, but soon his head lifted and turned to face his rescuers.

"I'm…I'm okay."

"That's one lucky bastard," Arthur said with a shake of his head. "Okay, let's get to work."

The three men began to search for handholds in the mountain, but it quickly became clear that it was not going to be an easy climb. They were only able to progress about five meters up the mountain. Lili followed eagerly behind the rescuers and realized at the same time they did that they would not be able to get any higher than they already were. The ice and snow made it too difficult to go any further, and the rocks themselves weren't ideal for climbing either. It was starting to become apparent that this rescue was not going to be a simple one in the least.

Alfred finally voiced the question the others were all thinking. "What do we do now?"

"We only have one choice, but it's not going to be easy," Arthur replied. "He's going to have to abseil down himself."

"But he doesn't have enough rope!" Lili objected.

"We can give him a rope." He turned toward Ludwig and began to shout. "Ludwig! We need you to abseil down to us!"

"Not enough…not enough rope."

"Unravel whatever you have left and lower it down to us! We'll tie it to a longer one you can use!"

Ludwig didn't answer, but his hands went to work. In actuality, it was one hand that went to work because the other one no longer functioned. During the night, it had turned the same purplish black that Elizabeta's arm had been, and he could barely move any of the fingers at all. Even with this disability, he didn't abandon his efforts. He used his good hand to find the end of the rope wrapped around his chest and began to painstakingly unwind the individual strands and tie them together with his teeth. Normally, such a simple task would not have taken long at all, but Ludwig was at the end of his strength. His hand moved with stiff, uncoordinated jerks, and he often fumbled to keep the strands of rope from falling out of his unsteady hands. The only thing that kept him going was his will to not die. It wasn't going to end like this. Not after all he had been through.

The others watched his slow progress patiently, but soon had to find other ways to keep themselves occupied. Alfred forced Matthew to participate in some kind of game while Arthur watched. It was Lili who first spotted the thin rope dangling in the air. Five hours had gone by since Ludwig had started, and she quickly alerted the others. They began to shout at each other excitedly as they tried to figure out where they had put their ropes. Finally, Matthew pulled a long rope from his bag, and Arthur quickly tied it to the one Ludwig had lowered for them.

"You can pull it up now!"

As slowly as it was dropped down, the thin rope began to ascend carrying the other one with it. They all watched as it rose higher and higher. Eventually, the end of the rope came into view. Much, much too soon.

"That's not the sixty meter rope," Alfred said in a soft voice. "Which one was that?"

"I-it must be the thirty," Matthew responded as he dug through his pack. "I-I can't find the s-sixty. We must h-have forgotten it."

"Well, what do we do now?! He won't be able to make it down with just the thirty meter rope!" The two men started to tear out the contents of Matthew's bag with panic-filled eyes.

"H-here! Tie this to the end!" Matthew handed Alfred another rope, which he tied to the end of the other just before it was pulled out of reach. "That was the other thirty. He should be able to get down now…p-probably."

They all watched as Ludwig took the makeshift sixty meter rope and fixed it around himself. It was tied in such a way that he could control how fast and how far he rappelled by letting more or less rope slide through his hand. Once it was secured to the piton still embedded in the mountain, he began his descent. He would drop in short, quick spurts, but it was better than nothing at all. With every few meters he descended, Lili felt the coils of fear surrounding her heart loosen. He would be safe in a few minutes. She wouldn't have to worry anymore.

Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple. He was only a few meters from being rescued when the knot between the two ropes caught in the carabiner he had on his chest. There was a brief struggle as he tried to get the knot loose, but it was in vain. Everyone watched in stunned silence as he dangled in the open air, unable to continue. It had to have been a joke. Life was just playing a sick cruel joke. To be so close to the end but with one last impossible roadblock to keep Ludwig from reaching his goal was just too much. He seemed to resign himself to his fate and hung limply from the end of the rope. He had fought a good fight, but this was the end.

"Ludwig…Ludwig!" Lili's dread-filled voice cut through the air. "Ludwig, you have to keep trying! You can't give up!" Without a thought as to herself, she started to climb up the icy rocks toward Ludwig.

"Hey! You're going to hurt yourself!" Arthur called after her, but she didn't listen.

She only stopped when she found a small ledge at the same height as the remaining Beilschmidt. There was no fear or sadness, only determination. "Ludwig, look at me. Look at me!"

The climber somehow found the strength to lift his head. His face was covered in dark patches of frostbite, but his blue eyes were as clear as Lili remembered. She forced herself to not break eye contact and to be strong. She was his strength now.

"You have to keep trying! Don't give up! Try again!"

Ludwig's hands strayed toward the knot. All he had to do was lift his weight off the rope long enough for the knot to slip through the carabiner, but it was a Herculean effort in his current condition. Despite the odds stacked against him, he gripped the rope and pulled. He managed to lift himself a few centimeters, but it wasn't enough for the knot to pass through. His arms went limp once more.

"Please, Ludwig! You can't give up! Please!" Lili held her hands out to the man she loved, begging him to come to her. "Please! Please!"

His breaths came in shallow gasps as he tried to lift his arms. Each movement was painful and took a tremendous amount of energy. He was tired. Tired of hurting, tired of being cold. All he wanted was to rest, to rest and forget. His eyes found Lili's face. Tears were starting to spill onto her cheeks and glistened in the sun like tiny diamonds. He wanted to tell her not to cry. He wanted to tell her he was sorry and that she shouldn't blame herself for this. This was his idea, not hers. There was so much he wanted to say, but there wasn't any time. There was never enough time. Life was too short to say everything there was to be said. Even in a hundred lifetimes, he probably still couldn't tell her everything he needed to. It was a pity, really. If anyone deserved the words in his heart, it was her.

" _Ich kann nicht mehr_."

Ludwig went limp and was very still.


	15. Epilogue

Toni Kurz was born on January 13, 1913 in Berchtesgaden, Bavaria. He is portrayed by Germany in this story and by Benno Fürmann in the 2008 movie North Face.

Andreas (Andi) Hinterstoisser was born on October 3, 1914 in Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria. He is portrayed by Prussia in this story and by Florian Lukas in the movie.

Willy Angerer and Edi Rainer were the two Austrian climbers. They were portrayed by Austria and Hungary in this story and by Simon Schwartz and Georg Friedrich in the movie.

The characters portrayed by Liechtenstein and Switzerland are fictional characters created for the sake of the movie. Johanna Wokalek and Ulrich Tukur play them in the movie.

The story told in both _Unconquerable_ and _North Face_ is based on a true attempt made by the four-man team of Kurz, Hinterstoisser, Angerer, and Rainer. They began their ascent in July of 1936, and it was around this time that talk of Germany annexing Austria became a main topic of discussion. However, the actual union did not take place until 1938. During the first few days of the climb, the weather was clear and the teams made good progress. Unfortunately, Angerer was struck in the head by falling rocks while trying to climb the first ice field. After their slow progress to cross the second because of the injury, they decide to go back down. Their effort to retrace their route was thwarted when they reached the traverse, which would later be known as the Hinterstoisser Traverse, and were unable to get back across. Hinterstoisser used a pendulum swing for several hours before finally giving up on this course of action. The group's only option was to climb straight down, and while they were doing so, an avalanche disconnected Hinterstoisser from the others causing him to fall to his death. Not long after, Angerer was killed from being smashed against the mountain. This caused Rainer to be pulled against a wall, and he died from asphyxiation. Kurz was the lone survivor of his team. A rescue team endeavored to save him, but the poor weather conditions made it impossible for them to reach him. He stayed on the mountain all night until the rescuers returned the next day. In order to be rescued, he had to cut the bodies of his fellow climbers off the mountain, and then he spent five hours unraveling and reconnecting a rope without the use of a frozen hand. The rescuers had brought a sixty meter rope that they were going to tie to the cord Kurz had made, but it fell by accident off the side of the mountain. To remedy this, they tied two shorter ropes together. This proved to be problematic when the knot catches in a carabiner and halts Kurz's descent as he abseiled to his rescuers. Weak and exhausted, he was unable to lift himself enough to allow the knot to slip past. His final words were " _Ich kann nicht mehr_ ", which translates roughly to "I can no more", before he died dangling mere meters from safety.

In 1935 two Bavarian climbers made an attempt at the North Face by the names of Karl Mehringer and Max Sedlmeyer. Inclement weather also caused their climb to be unsuccessful, and the two died in a spot now known as "Death Bivouac".

Matthias Rebitsch and Ludwig Vörg made another climb in 1937. They were the first to come back alive after a serious attempt to reach the summit, but were ultimately unsuccessful.

The first successful attempt was made on July 24, 1938. A German-Austrian team consisting of Anderl Heckmair, Ludwig Vörg, Heinrich Harrer, and Fritz Kasparek used the Hinterstoisser Traverse to ascend the North Face. After battling bad weather, the group made it to the summit around four in the afternoon.

Many attempts have been made since the first in 1934, and many have been successful since the first triumph in 1938. Although the Eiger is no longer the "last problem of the Alps", it has been an inspiration and almost an obsession for many. This is just one of countless stories of the North Face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so very much to all of my readers out there who stuck to this story. I know it wasn't a really happy story, but it's one that is very dear to me. I highly recommend watching the movie version of this story as well, and can say it is one of my all time favorite movies. It is in German, but it is very well made. The movie was actually my inspiration to write this XD I'd like to thank you all again for sticking this out, and I promise the next story I write will not be anywhere near as sad :) Feel free to check out some of my other stories, but don't wander too far. I have more coming out soon ;)


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